


The Crossroads Of Eden

by glasslogic



Series: In Arcadia Ego [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Dubious Consent, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-17
Updated: 2012-03-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 01:44:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 47,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/363627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasslogic/pseuds/glasslogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been two years since Sam nearly died in a hunter’s trap and accepted Dean’s offer to become a vampire. Two years of running and hiding as the gradual transformation slowly takes hold in a desperate gamble to put himself out of reach of the demons pursuing him. But two years is a long time to stay hidden from the world, and one little slip is enough to catch the attention of not only the demons searching for him and the hunters who want him dead, but also the one person in the world he least wants involved-- his father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Section One

  


****

**Prologue**

Most nights fog was just fog, damp and harmless, heavy in the air, lingering until the sun rose to burn it off. Other nights it was a living thing, swallowing light and sound with smothering weight, eddying around traffic like deep water currents stirred by predators in the dark. On those nights people walked fast, eager to return to the safety of their homes, to places that didn’t raise the hair on the backs of their necks and make them feel small, defenseless and lost.

In the mountains of West Virginia, suspended high above the water on the steel and cable length of the New River Gorge Bridge, one man didn’t seem to notice the oppressive weight of the night. The full moon burning in the sky could barely penetrate the thick blanket of fog and left him standing in restless shadows as he leaned against the bridge rail, listening to things only he could hear.

He stood there for hours as the moon sank lower and the traffic died away until not even the memory of its passing remained in the dark. Shortly before three a.m., the oddly muffled click of heels on concrete echoed through the fog, announcing a new presence.

“Any news?”

The newcomer shifted uneasily, short, blond hair dull in the haze.

“Meg?” he pressed with a note of impatience.

She had another name, something sibilant that twisted just so on the blood-tinged winds of Hell, but he wouldn’t use it. Insisted instead on the pathetic diminutive that belonged to the meat she wore. An insult, but not one she could answer-- and survive. _He_ had a name too, but wherever she might fall in the hierarchy of power, it wasn’t high enough to risk it. There wasn’t anything to stop her from _thinking_ it though, and she did, a subtle defiance that was as close as she would ever come to testing his mastery. Survival was a delicate game.

“We’re following your leads, but everything we find is weeks cold. He could be anywhere.”

“No,” the man mused, staring out into the fog as if he could see through its tendrils into the valleys and town around them. “He’s here, somewhere. Close.”

“How _close_?” she demanded, frustration breaking her reserve for a moment. He turned to face her, one brow raised. “There’s too much ground,” she insisted. “Too much for us to find him before he moves again. We can’t _feel_ him like you do.”

He turned back to the fog. “I have the link, but I also have dozens of other problems to keep track of. I’ve narrowed it down as closely as I can without walking every street in this region myself. You know what he looks like, the hounds have his scent. Run him down and bring him in.”

“If there are several dozen, why is this one so important?” she asked, struggling to keep the frustration out of her voice. His expression told her she had failed.

“Several dozen possibilities, but only one of them will be right-- and no way of knowing which one that is. Not yet. Not until after they are... tested.” The annoyance in his voice made her flinch. “And I can’t test what we can’t find. What _you_ can’t find,” he added with a searing look. “Thousands of years of planning and preparation thrown into jeopardy because one stubborn mortal decides he would rather run away with the freak show.”

“We’re doing our best,” she insisted. “Dozens of the human hunters are looking for him too; we’ve followed them as well as the leads you have given us and nothing has turned up so far. Just traces, weeks cold and offering no direction. If it were just the man, someone would have found him by now! But he’s being aided by that damn vampire, and the vampire has more experience hiding and staying in the shadows than any dozen of us searchers have years on this plane combined.”

“So you’re saying that on the eve of the culmination of all of our long millennia of planning, the forces of Hell are being outwitted and outmatched by _one single_ vampire?”

She swallowed and jerked her chin up. After a moment, when it became obvious she would offer no defense, his expression turned pensive and he crossed his arms, studying the concrete, lost in thought. Meg remained quiet and motionless; she had endured far worse in Hell than to wait in painless silence while a more powerful demon decided her fate.

Or someone else’s.

After a few minutes he chuckled to himself and looked back up. “These hunters you’re following are subpar at best. They’re angry, but not really _invested_. They don’t have enough edges or the proper motivation to find our quarry. And I can get us close, but every day my sense of him is weakening as he walks further and further down the wrong road. We have more significant matters that require our attention; it’s time to put this job in the right hands and be done with it.”

“The right hands?” she asked skeptically.

“Oh, yes.” He smiled, eyes flaring yellow in the ghostly, fog-filtered light. “Fortunately for you, I know just the man for the job.”

  
 ****

 **Chapter One**

**_Six Months Later_**  
  
“This sucks!” Sam slammed the laptop closed and glared at Dean.  
  
Sam looked less than threatening sitting on a bare mattress surrounded by rumpled blankets, dark hair falling into his face and dressed in reindeer pajama bottoms and a white t-shirt, but Dean recognized the wildness in his eyes and sighed inwardly. The vampire tossed the newspaper he was reading onto the plywood suspended on rough crates that served them as a table and swung his feet down to face Sam directly and give him the target he was obviously looking for. “Anything in particular or just life in general?”  
  
“This!” Sam made a frustrated gesture, taking in the mattress on pitted concrete, one haphazard table, a folding chair and a battered mini fridge where it hummed against a cinderblock wall. Some rusted machinery that looked like it had not been used in years took up the majority of the room, and a pipe dripped steadily from somewhere off in the darkness. Suspended overhead from an extension cord, a naked glass bulb shone harsh light onto the altogether unimpressive sight of their primitive living space.  
  
Dean shrugged. “We’ve stayed in worse.”  
  
“Which is completely beside the point! Or maybe it is the point,” Sam scowled, stood up and grabbed clothes from his duffle bag before stalking barefoot towards the tiny bathroom that seemed to have served most of its life as a janitor’s closet. He slammed the door shut with enough force to make dust filter down from the overhead pipes. Dean rolled his eyes and picked the paper back up, not particularly bothered by Sam’s show of temper.  
  
He was more concerned when Sam stormed back out a few minutes later and headed for the stairs. Dean moved in a blur to plant himself at the bottom of the flight before Sam could set foot on the first step. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?!”  
  
“Out,” Sam growled.  
  
“Yeah, that’s smart.” Sam’s expression darkened and Dean stifled a groan, already able to tell this wasn’t going to be a reasonable discussion. “There’s a reason we’re hiding, Sam. A reason _you’re_ hiding! And last I checked there weren’t any timeouts being called because you’re feeling a little cooped up.”  
  
“It’s been two years, Dean!” Sam snapped back. “Two years of hiding in freaking abandoned basements, and railroad cars, and sewers, and--”  
  
“Houses, hotels and apartments?” Dean asked pointedly.  
  
“--and I just need to get out and stretch my legs for a little while!”  
  
“We stretch your legs all the time! You’re not shackled to anything down here.” Though from the determined glint in Sam’s eye, Dean thought it might be something he should consider.  
  
“Yeah, Dean. We’ve ambled over half the countryside in the dark; consider my legs stretched. But I need other things too, you know? Like some natural light and to see other people. I just have to get out of here for a bit. To remind myself that there is more to the world than you, me and mosquitoes!”  
  
“What kind of _natural light_ do you plan on getting at--” Dean glanced at the red numbers on the battered alarm clock that had started life in a roadside dive, “--two a.m.?”  
  
“The only kind I can now,” Sam retorted, stepping forward as if he was going to try to shove past.  
  
Dean held his ground and lowered his voice. “It’s not my fault you sleep all day, Sam. I warned you what would happen. It’s a phase, it sucks, and once you’re through it you can pick your own bedtime.”  
  
“When I’m through it?” Sam demanded. “In ten years, Dean?”  
  
“You should only have about eight left, but it’s a little different for everyone! You see me doing a lot of crystal ball gazing in my spare time?” Dean snapped, patience with the rehashed argument starting to wear thin.  
  
“Different for everyone, but more different for me. I’ve got all kinds of screwed up things that shouldn’t be happening for at least three more years, right? We don’t even know if I _can_ finish the change! This might all be for _nothing_. I could be rotting down here in the dark for _not_ \--”  
  
“Hey!” Dean cut him off before he could head any further down that road. “What do you want me to say? You could have been dead on a mountain two years ago! It was your decision to take this trip with me. I told you it would take a decade. It’s a little boring since we have to keep a profile so low we’re kissing dirt, but that’s because of your demonic fan club and the hunters after your ass, which has nothing to do with me! And yeah, your transformation is going a little screwy. But it’s not like it’s some kind of horrific disaster either. So far, all you’ve got is a little photo-sensitivity and a regular bedtime--”  
  
“And garlic allergies, and I get sick when we cross running water, and I don’t have a ‘regular bedtime’, Dean; I’m in a freaking coma from sunrise to sunset!”  
  
“Things could be worse,” Dean pointed out when the echo of the outburst died away. “You could have to sleep in your native soil and catch fire when exposed to the sun. You have demon blood in your veins, it’s fucking things up. But I can taste the change happening in you. And sometime during this whole shindig, whatever chain the demons have on you will snap; they won’t be able to find us like we’re in the freaking phone book, and we won’t have to be so crazy paranoid.” Not that Dean had any intentions of _acting_ any less paranoid, but he figured that could just be an annoying surprise for Sam when they reached that point.  
  
Instead of replying, Sam pushed past Dean. Before he could start to climb the battered, wooden steps, Dean caught his arm in an implacable grip and shoved him up against the wall. Sam had developed impressive night vision, but his strength was still entirely mortal and no match for Dean’s.  
  
“Why don’t we bring some sanity into this discussion, Sam?” Dean tried in his most persuasive voice. “If it’s just some cabin fever you need to work out, we can do that right here. No need to go anywhere at all.” Dean let his eyes rest on the pulse pounding in Sam’s throat. He knew Sam was aware of where his gaze had fallen from the sudden flush and the way he tilted his head just slightly in unconscious invitation.  
  
Dean leaned in, nuzzling where he could feel Sam’s pulse through the soft skin under his ear. For an instant, Sam started to relax and Dean thought he would take the offered distraction. Sharing blood with sex was so instinctively intertwined as acts of bonding that either alone seemed almost unsatisfying now. If he could use them to derail Sam’s agitation, it was a win-win situation all around. But before it could progress any further, Sam abruptly stiffened and shoved him away. “No... later. When I get back.”  
  
“Damn it, Sam!” Dean snapped. “I know you’re frustrated, but this is for your own goddamned safety! I can’t protect you from a legion of demons and I can’t protect you from every hunter on the planet. The only real protection we have is staying hidden.”  
  
“You don’t understand; you aren’t trapped in one place day after day! You get to go out and do what you want.”  
  
Dean gritted his teeth. “I go out because the people looking for you aren’t going to recognize me nearly as fast. I go out to get things we need to survive, to make arrangements for places to live. I’m not down at the local watering hole chatting up hookers, and most of the time I’m sitting right here watching you freaking sleep!”  
  
Sam shook his head. “I just... I just need to see something that isn’t four walls, Dean. I need to get out for a while.”  
  
“Sam! Going out there is the stupides--”  
  
“You aren’t my father!”  
  
“No,” Dean snapped back without thought, “you can tell the difference because I’m trying to save your life instead of abandoning you helpless and ignorant to the fucking monsters.” He knew it was a mistake as soon as the words left his mouth, but there was no graceful way to take them back.  
  
Besides, it was true. Well, lack of abandonment and presumably the sex. And the blood. And the whole vampire thing.  
  
Sam gave him a twisted half smile full of the bitter self-loathing of someone who had betrayed all of their principles. That more than anything else made Dean regret that Sam spent so much time trapped in one place: too much time to brood. Sam had chosen this willingly, had asked for it and never voiced regret. But Dean was aware of the constant mental battle Sam still fought between what he wanted and what a lifetime of experience told him was wrong. When a couple of months ago he had started passing out at sunrise and sleeping until sunset, it had actually been a relief in some respects.  
  
“I didn’t have to be abandoned to monsters, Dean. When given the chance, I hopped right into bed with them.” Sam looked like he wanted to add something else, but just turned and stomped unimpeded up the stairs. “Don’t follow me,” he called back as he vanished into the darkness above.  
  
Dean gave him a few minutes head start and then did follow, of course. Getting drawn into the argument had been a stupid thing, but it helped Sam blow off some steam. Dean wasn’t angry at him for being frustrated, and certainly not irritated enough to let him wander off alone. And there was little chance of Sam spotting Dean as he trailed him through the night, no matter what kind of vivid nightlife Sam found to expose himself to. Demons might be new territory for the vampire, but stalking his lesser cousins was a craft he had mastered, and Sam’s mostly human senses were no match for his skills.  
  
But Sam didn’t head for the heart of the town, didn’t wander into a bar or a restaurant where he could absorb the company of his fellows. That he wanted to was obvious from the rapt attention he gave store fronts and passersby. But if they glanced at him he averted his gaze, hunched his shoulders, turned away. The instinctive reaction pleased the protective part of Dean, though its necessity made him wish things could be otherwise. In another life Sam would have been a university grad with a white picket fence and a house in the suburbs, two and a half kids with his college sweetheart, working a daytime job and worrying about his pension. But in another life Dean would have been centuries dead. Life was what it was; you made your choices and took your punches. Sam accepted that most days and Dean could put up with his temper the rest of the time.  
  
After a couple of hours even the night owls that inhabited any good-sized city had deserted the streets. Sam had settled on the cement edge of a fountain facing the window of a bookstore that wouldn’t open until well after dawn. Dean watched from the shadows for a while, but when Sam seemed disinclined to move any time soon, Dean approached and leaned against the cold stone beside him.  
  
“Feel better?” Dean asked after a few minutes of contemplative silence.  
  
“Yeah,” Sam muttered, not seeming surprised to find him there. “Sorry.”  
  
“I can handle the occasional blow-ups, Sam. I just need you not to do things that put you at risk.”  
  
“I know.” Sam sighed heavily. “I’m... sorry.”  
  
“You said that already.”  
  
Sam didn’t respond to that, just shoved his hands further into his pockets.  
  
“Hey.” Dean nudged him with an elbow and Sam reluctantly turned his head to meet Dean’s eyes. “I do understand, you know. I went through this too once. It’s awful, and it’s boring, but it won’t last forever. Look on the bright side! At least you don’t feel sick.”  
  
“It might be easier if I did.” Sam’s shoulders slumped and he scuffed one boot in the loose mulch beneath his feet. “At least then I would be happy to stay in bed doing nothing. If we didn’t have to stay here, if we could even go to South America or something, I wouldn’t have to stay holed up all the time.”  
  
“The hunters wouldn’t be such a problem, though they have their own hunters and word gets around. But the demons would still be trailing us.” It _would_ be easier, and Dean had often had the same thought. It just wasn’t possible.  
  
“It doesn’t matter anyways; we can’t go because of my screwed up _whatever_.”  
  
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Sam. At some point, you’re going to need your native lands. I can get you to Kansas from here in just a few hours. From anywhere else... it seems stupid to go through all of this just to have you die an agonizing death because you got a little stir-crazy. Normally it wouldn’t be an issue because you wouldn’t be in any danger of needing your home ground for six or seven more years at the earliest. But _normally_ we wouldn’t be on the run from hunters and demons either, so _normal_ is a little out the window. You’ve got some things way early, like the daytime coma, and some things you shouldn’t have at all.”  
  
“Yeah, my eyesight is _awesome_.”  
  
Dean ignored the sarcasm dripping from Sam’s voice. “That just proves my point. It’s normal to get some briefly heightened senses when you first start down this road, but then they fade away back to human until after the change happens. You had almost perfect night vision within _minutes_ of tasting my blood, and you’ve never lost any of it.”  
  
“Which is great for me, since apparently I’m going to spend the next eight years _in the dark_.”  
  
“You could be spending them in the ground,” Dean suggested.  
  
“That’s another thing. I can’t _tell you_ how much I’m looking forward to being buried alive for nine months.”  
  
Dean rolled his eyes. “Stop dwelling on that! When the time comes it’s not going to be some big ordeal. Trust me; you’ll be grateful when it happens. You’ll have a nice snooze, let all those tedious last minute things work themselves out. And when you wake up? All this crap will be over. But you’ve still got a long road to get to that point. I want you here, and I want you to do this... but the other alternative is still open.”  
  
“Death?”  
  
Dean shrugged.  
  
Sam glared, and there was a tense silence between them for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and shook his head. “No, no. I want to do this. I _do_. I’m just, you know, bored and... like you said, ‘stir crazy.’ Again. How the hell can you keep so calm all the time?!”  
  
Dean shrugged again. “My perspective on time is a little different than yours. Besides, I’ve been where you are and I remember what it was like. Sure, I didn’t have demons and hunters after me, but we still had to be careful and we had to move around so no one had time to be suspicious. Besides,” he grinned suddenly, “I was _way_ worse than you’ve been.”  
  
“What do you mean ‘worse’?” Sam asked, curiosity distracting him for the moment.  
  
“I ran away, pitched crazy fits, tried to kill my sire. Fun things like that.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Dean’s face took on the distant cast that Sam knew meant he wasn’t going to get an answer to the question. Which is why he was surprised when Dean spoke up.  
  
“I didn’t choose this, so I was a little upset when it happened. Not a situation that put me in the most cooperative frame of mind.”  
  
“What do you mean!? You told me your kind of vampires choose new ones carefully, that it’s all about bonds and time and--”  
  
Dean nodded impatiently, cutting him off.  
  
“I did, and that’s true. But exceptions prove the rule, and it turned out okay once I had a handle on things. It was just the first year or so. I reacted kind of like you did, ‘Vampires! Icky!’” He gave his best impression of a teenage girl and was satisfied when Sam snorted and looked away, an involuntary half-smile on his face.  
  
“I wish you would tell me more about what it was like for you; it might help me,” Sam said after a moment. “I mean, I don’t even know how old you are.”  
  
“I’m an adult,” Dean said pointedly. “And I’ve told you what happens in a normal transformation. We’re writing a new book with you.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam grumbled. “A boring, dimly lit book. Full of leaky pipes and spider webs.”  
  
“You want me to pick up a checkerboard or something?” Dean offered, pleased with the change in direction.  
  
“What about a treadmill?” Sam gave in.  
  
“We’re moving in two days; I can get one for the new place.”  
  
“And Internet access?” Sam added hopefully. “I’m a lot less bored when I can at least surf the web. And I have class work to catch up on.”  
  
Dean gave an easy shrug. “Sure. But I don’t know why you’re sweating your online education so much; it’s not like yet _another_ degree from some Internet-only program under a fake name is going to be useful to you. At all. But whatever floats your boat. You need dancing girls and caviar too?”  
  
“It’s just something to do, Dean. And I think Internet access and a treadmill is plenty... unless you can dig up a stationary bike too or something.” Sam let a note of wistfulness creep into his tone.  
  
“I’ll even throw in some free weights.”  
  
The tightness in Sam’s shoulders eased somewhat and his face had lost some of the tension and unhappiness. It wasn’t quite good humor, but he was making the effort. “So, where were we before I threw a fit and stormed out?”  
  
Dean stepped away from the statue and started picking his way back towards their safe house, pausing a moment until Sam was beside him. “I was offering to take your mind off your troubles.  
You were pretty nasty about it. Pushed me and everything.”  
  
“I’ll have to make that up to you.” Sam deliberately brushed against his shoulder.  
  
“I’m awfully hurt.” Dean gave him a sidelong glance. “It’s going to take a lot of making up.”  
  
Sam met the look with a heated one of his own, the last traces of anxiety finally smoothed away by the deluge of a different sort of emotional drive. “I’ll be creative. Someone told me I’m good at that.”  
  
Dean smiled but said nothing as they worked their way through the quiet city streets to reach the warehouse again. He listened intently at the top of the stairs for any sounds from below but heard nothing out of place; the gravel he had scattered in front of the door was as he had left it, indicating no one had visited while they were gone. That wasn’t surprising; he never expected visitors.  
  
But it wasn’t the expected ones you had to be on guard for.  
  
Dean trailed Sam down the stairs until he stepped off onto the bare concrete of the floor, then pushed him up against the wall in the same spot he had pinned him earlier. Sam didn’t resist, just raised a questioning eyebrow.  
  
“Might as well pick up where we left off,” Dean suggested. “You said something about later and making it up to me. It’s later.”  
  
“The mattress is less than twenty feet away,” Sam pointed out.  
  
“We’ll get there,” Dean muttered. He trapped Sam in place with the weight of his body, claiming him with a fierce kiss before Sam could raise any more complaints. Sam willingly opened his mouth under Dean’s onslaught and sucked on his tongue with such enthusiasm that Dean groaned and broke it off, wishing he was getting that kind of treatment somewhere else entirely.  
  
“Are you going to bite me?” Sam gasped, yanking Dean’s shirt from where it was tucked into his jeans until his hands could reach bare skin.  
  
Dean mouthed over his favorite spot beneath Sam’s ear, tasting the salt of his skin and the indefinable flavor that was simply _Sam_.  
  
“Why?” he breathed into Sam’s ear, enjoying the shudder of pleasure that ran through Sam’s body. “You think I can’t get you off without it?” He felt more than heard Sam’s huff of impatience and grinned, stepped back to peel his own shirt off. Sam stayed where he was against the wall, face flushed and eyes dark; watching intently as Dean casually dropped his shirt onto the floor and popped the top button on his jeans. Dean gave him an expectant look. “I thought this was _your_ apology. Why am I doing all the work?”  
  
Sam gave him a somewhat lazy smile and closed the distance between them, shrugging out of his flannel and tugging his own shirt over his head. “Because you feel bad for me and want to make me feel better?”  
  
Dean snorted and hauled Sam in close by a belt loop. “More like I want to shut up the bitching. I don’t remember you being such a princess before.”  
  
“Before what?” Sam asked, sliding his hands between their bodies to finish unfastening Dean’s jeans. “Before you stopped torturing me for fun, before someone almost killed me, or before the argument earlier tonight?”  
  
“Pick one.”  
  
Sam paused. “Are we fighting again?”  
  
Dean caught one of Sam’s hands and pulled it up to admire the tracery of veins under the thin skin of his wrist, felt Sam’s awareness of the attention in the way his breath caught. “If you want. I kinda thought you were interested in other activities right now, though.”  
  
“I’m--” Sam cast another glance at the mattress with its rumpled sheets.  
  
“ _What_ is your attachment to the bed?” Dean demanded.  
  
Sam’s eyes narrowed, losing some of the unfocused haze of arousal. He took a half step back. “Maybe that the floor is bare concrete and I’m tired of having my knees all bruised up because you like to drag it out--”  
  
Dean rolled his eyes, keeping hold of Sam’s wrist with one hand and grabbing hold of the waist of Sam’s jeans with the other to tug him closer. Sam leaned back in resistance and continued on.  
  
“--and maybe because we are coming up on sunrise fast and I’d rather not crack my skull open on the floor if I pass out in the middle of something!”  
  
The edged smile Dean responded with was the kind that made Sam’s belly tighten and his skin ache to feel Dean’s hands in places less innocent than his arm.  
  
“It sounds like you don’t trust me, Sam.” Dean’s grip on Sam’s wrist grew more fierce, and he jerked him back in close so that Sam felt they were almost trading breaths. Dean’s voice lowered. “Is that it? You don’t trust me?”  
  
With the length of Dean’s body pressed against him and fingers like branding irons dimpling his skin, Sam really wasn’t interested in discussing anyone’s trust issues, and he thought the accusation pretty outrageous anyway.  
  
“I trust you,” Sam hissed, leaning in to taste Dean’s mouth again, coaxing Dean’s tight lips into opening for a leisurely exploration. Dean obliged him, but then the world seemed to spin, and the next thing Sam knew, he was flat on his back across the mattress and Dean had stolen control of their kiss. When he licked into Dean’s mouth, Sam felt Dean’s fangs slide into place and he wasted no time in raking one with his tongue. The slight pain and taste of iron was completely worth the helpless sound Dean made as he searched out more of the elusive flavor. For his part, the only blood Sam desired to taste was Dean’s, though he had been promised that would change by the time the transformation was complete. It was another one of the details Sam tried not to dwell on.  
  
Dean’s hands were busy sweeping Sam’s skin, seeking out the sensitive places he had discovered over the last two years that would drive Sam into a fever pitch while Sam pulled at the fastening of Dean’s jeans. He popped the last of the buttons free and skinned the denim down, raking his short nails over the smooth skin of Dean’s ass and then up his back, enjoying the press of skin and the weight of Dean’s body against him.  
  
Almost everything Sam had ever known and believed in his life had dissolved into smokescreens and lies. The pillars of his childhood had crumbled and left him in freefall, abandoned by everyone he had known or trusted. Dean, unlooked for and out of nowhere, had extended a hand when Sam was drowning. Had wanted him and believed him, and sometimes Sam wondered if he didn’t crave this physical anchor Dean gave him as much as craved the physical pleasure Dean had taught him. His caress of Dean’s skin tightened into a bruising grip as he bucked up, grinding his hips against Dean’s firm thigh.  
  
Unaware of Sam’s thoughts, Dean let go of Sam’s mouth long enough to roll to one side and kick his pants free. Sam made a frustrated sound, but Dean wouldn’t let him follow, pinning Sam flat to the mattress. His eyes were dark and his expression almost feral when he looked up to meet Sam’s eyes. Sam immediately tilted his head to one side, baring the long line of his throat. He could feel Dean’s ragged breathing as the vampire considered.  
  
“Please,” Sam whispered. The sex was always good, but Sam knew it could be so much _better_. His own cock was pressing painfully against his fly and the only thing he wanted more than freeing it was Dean’s fangs buried in his throat. Sam was afraid if he moved a hand to work his own jeans open it would distract Dean from the act he was trying to entice him into. “Please, I want you to.”  
  
Dean snorted but released Sam’s arms and instead twisted the fingers of one hand into Sam’s hair, pulling until the angle was _perfect_. His mouth over Sam’s pulse made Sam shudder with anticipation. The years where he had feared and hated this were like some distant dream of another life. A life where he had been a hunter and Dean the monster that had trapped him into a vicious bargain. Now, Dean’s tongue was a velvety caress where he sucked gently, then the welcomed white flash of pain as needle-sharp teeth sank in. Sam gasped, but even as it registered, the sensation blurred out into the waves of pleasure that made him seek this out, again and again.  
  
Sam was riding the rushing crest of sensation, distantly aware of Dean’s hand sliding free of his hair, of Dean’s hands rough at his waist, working Sam free of the confining cloth of his jeans.  
  
Dean’s hand on his cock, stroking, slicked with his own pre-come. Too much, it was all almost too much. His skin was on fire and that bright pinnacle was building uncontrollably-- when suddenly the welling sensations were eclipsed by the dark shadow of sunrise stealing into his mind. Sam felt helpless lethargy pour into his muscles and the heady rush of the moment before was extinguished like a snuffed candle. He barely had the energy to push at Dean’s shoulder and mumble, “Dean. _Dean_ , the sun...”  
  
Dean rolled his eyes but didn’t need to glance at the clock. He could also feel the sun trembling just under the horizon, but he wasn’t chained to its cycles like Sam was and hardly noticed it anymore. He pulled back and dragged the soft grey blanket over Sam, pressing an edge of the rumpled sheet against the wounds in Sam’s throat.  
  
“See? This is what happens when we go with your plan instead of mine. If we’d done what _I_ wanted to do, we would have been finished and had you all tucked in half an hour ago!”  
  
Sam just blinked slowly. Dean gave an exasperated huff.  
  
“We can pick this back up again tomorrow. Before you pass out, though--” He bit into his free wrist and held it to Sam’s mouth. Sam managed a few swallows before even that was too much effort, the taste of Dean’s blood like sunshine and sweet berries on his tongue chasing him into oblivion.

~~~~~~~

While Sam spent the day curled up unconscious, Dean spent most of the time drowsing beside him on the mattress in the half sleep that passed for his rest, and the other empty hours working his way through the game library on Sam’s computer. The mouthful or so of blood Sam took every other day to fuel his transformation wasn’t really a significant amount of blood loss, but it was still wearying for the vampire and sapped his resources unpleasantly fast. He would have to hunt again soon.  
  
The following evening when Sam awoke, he seemed back in his usual spirits and eager to pick up where they had left off. But in the afterglow of that distraction, there was still a hint of the wildness in his eyes that made Dean uncertain about leaving his fledgling alone long enough to run errands. Sam’s fits were usually a one-night affair, but sometimes it spilled over and it would only take one ill-timed bad decision to bring hunters, demons and god knew what else down on their heads. One pick-up by a security camera watched by the wrong eyes, one Hell-born pest passing by on the sidewalk, and their laying low would revert to mad flight. It had been stupid to stay after last night’s stunt, but there had been no signs of close pursuit for months, and getting Sam settled on ground Dean already knew was secure had been his priority. But there was stupid, and there was asking-for-it. Dean tried to make a point of avoiding the latter category, and waited only for Sam to pass out for the day before he slipped out of the warehouse.  
  
He checked the perimeter, then jogged down to the quickie-mart to pick up a few groceries and make some calls. Confirming his plans for their next safe-house only took a few minutes. They could leave as soon as the sun set.  
  
He hadn’t been out twenty minutes before he was on his way back. Packing the things they intended to take with them would keep him occupied for about an hour, and then it was just a waiting game until Sam woke up and they could move. Dean was considering the merits of just stuffing Sam unconscious into the backseat of the Impala and covering him with a blanket when something caught at his awareness. He stopped dead in the middle of the deserted parking lot to try and hone in on what had attracted his attention. The warehouse loomed like the desolate wreck it was in front of him, and to his back was an abandoned strip mall. The parking lot was lower than the street but he could hear the heavy flow of traffic just out of sight to his left and there was nothing in the open field to the right that he could see. Across the field, beyond the line of scrubby trees, the roofs of distant houses peaked in the distance. He frowned, concentrating.  
  
The sun was barely edging over the building to the east and the blazing light of dawn was stabbing pain in his eyes. Being able to function freely in the daytime was a far cry from enjoying it, and the early morning hours were Dean’s least favorite. He wanted to be back in the warehouse sub-basement, to know Sam was safe, and to stretch out next to him on the mattress and sleep until mid-afternoon at least. But not until he figured out what was wrong.  
  
Suddenly the wind kicked up from the field, scattering dry, crackling leaves over the asphalt. Dean jerked his head, tracking the movement. The screech of tires on the street above and the sudden honk of angry horns made him flinch, the racket distracting him so that the first warning he had of the crossbow bolt was when it bloomed suddenly from his chest, impaling the orange juice in the bag. Juice splashed over his shirt and puddled on the ground. He blinked twice at the bolt protruding through the front of his shirt, feeling the heaviness of a foreign substance invading his bloodstream. Reality kicked in a split second later and he swore violently under his breath, recognizing the stain on the shaft and the burn of that particular poison. Even though it barely fazed him, Dean had a part to play and he collapsed obediently to the ground in a loose sprawl.  
  
Dead man’s blood.  
  
Hunters.  
  
Human hunters didn’t know about his people. They hunted his lesser cousins, the generous term his own kind used for that pestilent population who spread their disease by the droplet then squandered their potential on petty cruelty and debauchery. There were exceptions, some who just wanted to be left alone and live quiet lives, but they weren’t the rule. Dean’s own kindred kept the lesser ones in line, using them as both stalking horses and smoke screens, laying down hard lines for the excesses that would result in a slaughter far more thorough and severe than anything human hunters could imagine. Dozens of nests were wiped out of existence every year that the humans never knew existed.  
  
Common sense and the protection of his species demanded that he play along when these kinds of things happened. The attack was a standard hunter ambush. Catch a vampire alone in daylight, shoot them with dead man’s blood from a distance to paralyze them, then close in for the kill.  
  
Dean only had to wait for the hunter to come in to claim his head and then spring his own ambush. Hopefully it was a solo op; a pretty good bet with human hunters; they tended to be semi-psychotic, antisocial loners. But if not, the partner would probably assume the shot had gone through and the blood worn off before they approached. Or that they screwed up typing Dean to start with, which was closer to the truth. After he dealt with the one closing in, he could hunt the partner down at leisure after sunset when he was at his best. _Could_ being the operative word, because as soon as he dealt with the immediate problem he was stuffing Sam in the car and blowing town. There was always the chance that his hunting had not been as stealthy as he had thought and he had somehow brought himself to the attention of local hunters. But Dean had centuries of practice keeping himself off the radar, so he thought it a lot more likely that somehow Sam’s little adventure the night before had caught the wrong attention. And if the hunters were here, he had no doubt the demons weren’t far behind.  
  
Through half-lidded eyes Dean watched as scuffed, well-worn boots came into view. Seconds stretched out like hours as all of his instincts screamed at him that he needed to go to Sam, needed to make sure he was safe. The hunters could have been here earlier, could have watched him leave and then... Shit, shit. There should have been a bond between them that would let him know if Sam was in trouble. The last time he had tried this, there had been a _connection_ almost from the first night on, a deep awareness of the other that had grown hourly for almost nine years, until it was severed by a hunter’s blade in a mountain cavern in the frozen depths of winter. An image of Sam sleeping and vulnerable in the warehouse basement flashed behind his eyes and he recalled with sharp clarity another vulnerable sleeper he had also... loved. Rage burned in his veins. He did have _some_ connection with Sam, but it was a faint and unreliable thing, a pale shade to what it should have been.  
  
Another slow step. Dean continued lying motionless. Not quite close enough yet. The wind was still blowing from the field and he could smell nothing but dry grass and wildflowers. The sudden rumble of an engine from far too close sounded just as the hunter standing upwind poked him roughly with a shotgun, attempting to roll him onto his back. Dean grabbed hold of the gun and used it to yank the hunter off balance. The man swore and stumbled, then it was simplicity itself for Dean to knock his feet out from under him and pin him to the ground. Dean froze. He had never met the man beneath his hands in his life, but the scent had unmistakable notes to it, traces of something so familiar... Dean searched the face of the man lying dazed on the ground. It wasn’t immediately obvious, but there was something to the angle of his jaw, the lines of his face.  
  
“John Winchester,” Dean said flatly.  
  
Winchester struggled under him until Dean slammed his head back onto the ground and he went limp, stunned.  
  
“What the fuck are you doing here?!” Dean hissed, mostly to himself. He grunted, twisting the barrel of the shotgun into a useless mess while resisting the powerful impulse to just kill the man beneath him. John Winchester was dangerous, he was intolerant, and he had a reputation for both that Dean had known about long before he had ever met Sam. He was relentless, he was resourceful, and if he was on their tail then staying hidden had just gotten a lot harder. But the biggest reason Dean wanted to snap his neck and be done with it was that he had abandoned Sam when Sam had needed him the most, and the very _last_ thing Sam needed to deal with in his current frame of mind were the complications that John Winchester back in the picture presented.  
  
But Sam would find out. And never forgive him.  
  
Fledglings made people stupid, Dean thought with a certain amount of resignation.  
  
All of this was assuming that John hadn’t already killed Sam and had just been lying in wait for Dean to finish the deal. Dean swore and slammed Winchester’s head one more time onto the asphalt, leaving the hunter dazed and groaning, then sprinted towards the warehouse.  
  
He knew as soon as he crossed the threshold of the building what he would find in the basement.  
  
Everything was just as he had left it, the laptop on the milk crate, the maps and newspapers spread across the makeshift table, even Sam’s duffle bag with clothes spilling out the top.  
  
Everything, exactly as it had been when he’d left less than half an hour earlier to run his errands, except for one thing.  
  
Sam was gone.  
  
And there was a certain reek in the air, familiar and skin-crawling even for one of his kind.  
  
A creak on the step behind him told Dean he wasn’t alone anymore, but he didn’t bother turning around. He knew who his audience was. “I would have believed a lot of things about a person like you, but not this.”  
  
“Not what?” The voice was low and doubtlessly accompanied by a weapon pointed at his back, Dean was too angry to care.  
  
“I figured you might turn up one day, when you bothered checking in and found out Sammy decided not to hang around waiting for you to _enlighten_ him about a few things. Didn’t figure you’d sell out your own kid to demons, though. That’s a twist. And here I thought my opinion of you couldn’t _get_ any lower.”  
  
“What the hell are you talking about? Where’s my son?” While Winchester’s voice remained cool on the surface, there was an undercurrent of fear to the last question that reassured Dean that whatever else was going on, John hadn’t beaten everyone to the punch and left Sam dead in a dumpster somewhere. Which meant he was probably still alive. It was hard to feel even that much through their weak bond with all of the panic of the moment.  
  
Dean turned, spreading his empty hands wide. “He was here when I left; maybe you caught the license plate of the demons who took him?”  
  
“Sam wouldn’t have gone with demons. If they had come for him here, there would be signs of a fight. You want to try your story again?” Winchester cocked the handgun.  
  
“He was asleep,” Dean snapped in disgust. “The building could have collapsed around his ears and he wouldn’t have moved an inch. There wasn’t a fight; they just had to carry him out. Can’t you smell the reek of Hell in this place?”  
  
John’s nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed. “It’s true then; you’ve corrupted him. Is he human at all anymore?”  
  
“Was he ever?” Dean countered coldly. “This, he _chose_. You never even told him about the demons; you just tossed him the fucking car keys and told him to have a nice life. _Hunters_ almost killed him, and he had no idea why! Don’t you bitch at me about corruption, you sanctimonious jackass; you _left_ him!”  
  
John’s expression went flat and he pulled the trigger, but Dean was already gone.

  
 ****

 **Chapter Two**

When Sam startled awake as the sun slipped under the horizon, what immediately depressed him wasn’t just that he was in a trunk, but that he had enough experience to instantly know he wasn’t in the _Impala’s_ trunk. On the heels of that was the panic-inducing realization that if Dean had been forced to abandon the Impala and move them in a hurry while Sam was still unconscious, even if he had for some reason thought it wise to dump Sam in the trunk, it was unlikely Dean would have had a reason to truss him up like a festive turkey first. That left two probable candidates in the abduction: hunters or demons. Neither thought filled Sam with joy and he struggled to keep his racing thoughts focused on escape and not on what kind of horrors the next few hours might bring.

After squirming around proved there was nothing in the tight, uncomfortable space with him that he could use either as a weapon or to cut himself free, Sam tried yelling-- for whatever good it would do him, but there was no change in the motion of the vehicle. From the unevenness of the scratchy carpet he could tell there was probably a spare tire compartment under the trunk floor, but there wasn’t enough room to get into it when he was taking up almost all the space himself.

Eventually boredom and the heavy weight of the exhaust fumes worked on Sam to lull him into a state he hadn’t experienced in more than six months, an almost natural sleep. He woke up an unknown length of time later with a dry mouth and an aching head when the car rumbled to a halt.

He lay still, wrists already rubbed raw from his earlier escape attempts. Car doors slammed and then a moment later he heard the click of the lock and the trunk lid flew up. A nearby floodlight was blinding to eyes made overly sensitive from hours in the darkness, but he could make out two figures in front of him. Rough hands dragged him out then let go before he could find his feet. With his hands bound Sam couldn’t catch himself and he landed hard on his shoulder. By the time he managed to struggle upright his eyes had adjusted better and he could make out one of the people crouched in front of him-- a petite blond. She flashed him an edged smile and her eyes flooded black. Door number two then. It was stupid, but he rolled back onto his hands and kicked out.

She caught his bare feet and shoved back hard. Sam’s head slammed into the bumper and he furiously blinked back tears of pain.

“Now that you’ve got that out of your system, you want to walk into the house, or would you prefer to be dragged by the hair?”

She looked entirely willing to do it. Sam swore silently and struggled to get his feet under him. Her companion grabbed him under one arm and pulled him up, then bent to slice the rope around his ankles. Sam grimaced as the circulation returned to his feet in a wash of pins and needles.

“What do you want with me?” he demanded.

“ _I_ don’t want anything with you,” she replied flippantly. “But my vote didn’t count, so you and I and a few associates of mine are going to be spending some quality time together. Just think of us as your own personal intervention. You don’t _really_ want to be a vampire, do you, Sam?”

Sam didn’t answer her. She grabbed him by one arm, ignoring his violent flinch as her touch made his skin crawl, and started pulling him towards a small house set back in the trees. The floodlight was attached to the corner of a dilapidated barn. Sam resisted, at a loss for anything else to do, until his free arm was grabbed by the other demon and then he stopped fighting before he really did end up being dragged.

“Can you cut my hands free at least?” he asked as they reached the house. She nodded to her silent companion and a moment later Sam felt a tug in the bindings and then the rope was pulled away.

“This way.”

Sam followed her through the dimly lit interior of the house. It looked old and shabby, but clean and obviously well-lived-in; the olive shag carpet was heavily worn and framed pictures covered the walls. They reached a plain wooden door and she shoved it open, reaching in to flip a switch on the wall. Inside was what looked like a guest bedroom. A low dresser with a few knickknacks and photos took up most of the free wall space and a plain wooden twin bed with a simple green comforter was pushed into one corner. An open accordion closet door showed that the tiny area was empty except for a few neatly folded blankets at the top. A window was set back in an alcove by the closet, blinds dusty even from a distance.

“So... what?” Sam looked around at the little room. “You’re going to keep me here until I give up my evil vampire ways?” he asked skeptically.

“We’re going to keep you here until we’re told to do otherwise. And if you behave yourself and don’t make me get nasty, you might even survive the experience. This is your room. Stay in it.”

“Or what?”

She smiled at him; it raised all the hair on the back of his neck. “I’m a demon. What do you think?”

“I think I want to know why I’m so interesting to _demons_ that you’ve been chasing me for the last two years. Why the hell do you care if I want to be a vampire?!”

“You’re just that special. Now shut up and do what you’re told,” she suggested.

“Yeah,” Sam growled back. “I’ll just sit here a prisoner of my demonic kidnappers and wait to see what they decide to do with me. That sounds healthy.”

“If you hadn’t decided to go play with the undead, we would _both_ be having a better time, but you let your boyfriend corrupt you with his nasty disease and some of my acquaintances find that upsetting. We’re going to put you back on the straight and narrow.”

“How?” Sam demanded. “I’ll die without his blood now. You’ve spent too much time chasing us around not to know that. You think trying to make me swallow _demon_ blood instead is going to keep me alive somehow?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think there is going to be much _try_ about it, do you?”

“ _Why?!_ ” he exploded, furious and frustrated.

“You’re kind of hot when you’re pissed.” She eyed him speculatively, played with the zipper on the front of her shirt and took one half-step closer. Sam stumbled back, startled.

She took another step, an amused smile twisting the corners of her mouth.

Sam got a chair between them and searched desperately for a different topic. The demon was obviously not feeling chatty about her plans and he didn’t like the direction her thoughts seemed to be going in instead. His eyes fell on a framed portrait on the dresser. “Whose house is this?”

She gave a significant look out the window and Sam followed her gaze; even with his enhanced vision, it took him a moment to realize what he was seeing in the distance. But having made out the forms of several dog-sized scavengers tearing at what seemed to be a large carcass in the leaves, he couldn’t miss the implication. He swallowed.

“No one’s now,” the demon told him with a dark edge to her smile. “Any more questions?”

“Where’s Dean?”

“The vampire?”

Sam nodded mutely.

“You need to stop worrying about vampires, Sam. You should be more worried about yourself.”

With those ominous words, she left the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

The house was completely silent in her absence. Sam crossed his arms and sat on the bed. It sank under his weight with the protest of ancient springs. He counted five minutes, then shoved the window open and slipped out into the night.

~~~~~~~

Once outside, Sam’s first instinct was to go for the car, but when he peered around the corner of the house, the demon was standing by it, seemingly deep in discussion with a third person Sam hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting yet. He drew back hastily and struck off into the woods, skirting widely around the dogs and their meal. Leaves crunched under his bare feet and his sweatpants and thin t-shirt were in no way appropriate for the weather, but he couldn’t believe that death from exposure wouldn’t be a better option than whatever the demons had in mind for him.  
  
He had been on the move for about twenty minutes, half running and half sliding through the undergrowth of the steep hillsides, when something incredibly heavy hit his back and slammed him to the ground. Claws scratched over his skin and hot, rancid breath made him gag as something snuffled against the side of his face. He turned his head but saw nothing. Panicked, Sam struggled to get free but all that earned him was a low growl he could feel vibrating through his body. After much twisting and cursing, he finally squirmed out from under whatever it was far enough to slam an elbow into what he hoped was its face, and was rewarded by a sharp yelp that made his ears ring. Agonizing pain seared his nerves and he screamed as sharp teeth sank through the cloth of his t-shirt and into his bicep.  
  
A shrill whistle cut through the haze of pain and the teeth released as the weight jumped off his back. He sucked in a lungful of oxygen and rolled over. He still didn’t see any sign of what had attacked him, but the blond demon was standing a couple of yards away.  
  
“Do you like my dog?” She reached out and stroked a hand over what Sam saw as thin air. “Dogs, really. Hellhounds,” she smiled, her free hand gesturing to the woods around Sam as he sat up slowly, the ache from being flattened nothing compared to the pain in his arm.  
  
With his attention directed to it, he noticed uneasily that there did seem to be an unnatural sort of stillness around him. Dried leaves on the ground that didn’t rustle in the breeze, as though something weighed them down. As he watched, one leaf fluttered down from a tree and then just hung in mid-air, like it was caught on something.  
  
“What?” She chuckled at his expression. “You didn’t think I was going to sit outside your room and guard it _myself_ , did you?”  
  
“You could have warned me,” Sam spat, using his good hand to try and stem the bleeding from his wound.  
  
“I could have,” she agreed. “But I told you to stay put, and you strike me as more of a ‘learns from experience’ kind of guy. You _do_ learn, don’t you, Sam? Maybe next time I tell you something, you’ll pay attention.”  
  
She turned and started back up the slope. Sam sat in the leaves glaring at her until hot breath on the back of his neck and a low growl that vibrated through his body sent him scrambling to his feet and hurrying after her retreating form.

~~~~~~~

Sam was no stranger to the sight of his own blood. He could hardly have spent most of his life as a hunter without acquiring a certain familiarity with it, but since his career change from hunter to one of the hunted, most of his bleeding had been voluntary and under circumstances that were generally quite enjoyable. As a result, the visceral memory of how much being injured _hurt_ had faded somewhat. Trailing along in the demon’s wake during the interminable hike back, Sam had plenty of time to reacquaint himself with the sensation. So much so that by the time they finally reached the house, his shirt was wet with as much sweat as blood and he felt tired and shaky.  
  
He kept his focus, though, and deliberately didn’t glance at the car as they passed. If one escape had failed, he could always try another later. Hotwiring cars was a time-honored family tradition.  
  
Not necessarily one of his _better_ skills, but he figured the current predicament would be good inspiration.  
  
Once inside the house, the demon headed back towards the bedroom she had left him in earlier. Sam followed her, but stopped on the threshold. The demon looked unimpressed with Sam’s condition and raised one sharp eyebrow at his hesitation.  
  
“Look,” Sam tried, “whatever you want me for, I’m not going to be very useful if I bleed to death.”  
  
“From that little scratch? Please.” She raked him with an appraising look. “You don’t look like that delicate of a flower.”  
  
“There has to be some place in here I can clean up a little,” he gritted out.  
  
She looked at him expressionlessly for a long minute. Sam tried to look pathetic and exhausted. It wasn’t hard. Finally she sighed and rolled her eyes. “I have better things to do than babysit. We’ve established what happens if you leave, right? I know you hunters aren’t too bright, and you’re an unusually dim example of the breed, but I haven’t been too subtle for you, have I?”  
  
“I understand,” Sam agreed tightly.  
  
“Then do whatever you want. But if the hounds catch you outside again your last encounter will seem like a friendly lick.” She must have seen the thought flicker through Sam’s eyes because she smiled. “Oh, they won’t kill you. You’re not getting off that easy. However much fun I’m not having, we aren’t going to actually let you die. But a little excruciating pain never hurt anyone,” she added meaningfully.  
  
More blood fell while she studied the set of his jaw and his refusal to meet her eyes. “Well then, I think we’ve covered everything. Try not to drip on the carpet.”  
  
She slipped past him and headed for the front door. He watched her silently.  
  
“Oh, and Sam?” she called just as she opened the door, turning back and pulling something out of her jacket pocket. She dangled the object up for his inspection. Even at a distance it was easily identifiable as a distributor cap. “Some of these old cars, they need this to run, right?”  
  
Sam refused to give her the satisfaction of a response. Point made, she re-pocketed the cap and left. The thud of the door closing sounded like the lid of his casket slamming down.  
  
He went looking for the kitchen as soon as the door was shut. The wound needed care, but it wasn’t his first priority. If the house had been inhabited by humans until only recently there was a good chance he could find something to wipe the smile off a demon’s face. It wasn’t a large home and he found the room he was looking for down the hall and around the corner. It wasn’t quite as useful as Sam had hoped, though. He swore as he searched the counters and tossed the cabinets.  
  
If there had ever been salt in the house, it was gone now.  
  
Sam slumped down into one of the rickety wooden chairs in frustration. He hadn’t seen any phones or computers in the house, and now, no salt-- and nothing else that would make an effective weapon against demons. The only knives he had found would barely cut warm butter and other than a cast iron skillet he had spotted in the stove, he was coming up completely bust. Demons didn’t like iron, but the vivid image of how a Hellhound was likely to respond if he smacked it with a skillet made him quickly discard the idea.  
  
Thinking of Hellhounds... Sam sighed and turned to his second most pressing problem. He gingerly peeled a little of the blood-soaked shirt away from the wound in his bicep to try and assess how bad it really was. The bleeding had mostly stopped and it didn’t look life threatening-- though Sam certainly didn’t want to make any guesses on what kind of bacteria a Hellhound had in its mouth. But whatever plans the demons had for him, he wasn’t ready to give up quite yet, so the bite needed cleaning and some care. Resigned, he stood up to go find a bathroom and hopefully some supplies. Sam stumbled against the table, sending the collection of vitamins and supplements in the middle sliding and rolling in all directions across the smooth, wooden surface. One rolled to the edge by his hip and he paused in the act of reaching for it, staring at the label.  
  
Garlic supplements.  
  
Maybe the kitchen wasn’t entirely worthless after all.  
  
Sam grabbed the bottle and started to unscrew the lid, meaning to dump a handful into the pocket of his sweatpants.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
He spun at the new voice, letting the bottle roll back into the middle of the table with the rest. Sam had to assume anyone freely wandering the house was a demon, and did not have his best interest at heart. This new one was as blond as the first, but her long, loose hair framed features more angular and her expression, while suspicious, didn’t immediately raise his hackles.  
  
“Looking for first aid supplies.” Sam made a show of shrugging his injured arm with a grimace. He was relieved when her eyes shifted from the clutter of bottles on the table to track the movement. She glanced around the mess he had made on the kitchen counters and frowned.  
  
“Did you look in the bathroom?”  
  
“Not yet.”  
  
She looked at him like he was a little dim and made a ‘come with me’ gesture.  
  
“Apparently I missed something good,” she commented as he trailed her down the hallway. “What did you do to piss off the dogs?”  
  
“What do you think I did?” Sam asked, irritated by both the interruption and the small talk.  
  
She led him into the small bathroom and pointed at the closed toilet lid. Sam took a seat while the demon started opening cabinets. She set a roll of gauze and some band-aids by the sink, then crouched to rummage underneath it.  
  
“Why are you helping me?”  
  
“I don’t have anything else to do, and you won’t be good for anything if that gets all infected and you die. Do you want me to stop?”  
  
“The other one didn’t seem concerned about it.”  
  
“Other one?” she asked.  
  
“The other demon,” Sam clarified. “You... are a demon, right?”  
  
She looked directly at him, then blinked her pale blue eyes to inky black. Another blink and they were blue again. Sam shuddered as she turned back to her rifling of the cabinet, unconcerned.  
  
“Meg gets bitchy when she’s bored, and there’s not much to keep her occupied out here. I wouldn’t antagonize her if I were you.”  
  
“Meg is the other blond?”  
  
“At the moment.”  
  
Sam let that go. “Who are you?”  
  
She gave a smile edged in something Sam read as bitterness. “Who are any of us? You can call me Ruby.”  
  
Ruby plunked a bottle of Tylenol on the counter beside a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a tube of ointment, then filled a paper cup with water from the faucet. She shook out a couple of pills and handed them to Sam. He swallowed them and then the water.  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“No charge. Now strip and get in the shower.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The shower,” she repeated, as if trying to convey the meaning of the words to a slow child. “You’re covered in forest crap from head to toe and your arm is a disaster. Your feet are probably torn up too and who knows what else. Get in there and at least get all the blood and dirt off. I’ll try and wash your shirt in the sink, then hit it with the hairdryer. I don’t care if you want to run around half dressed, but you might.”  
  
Sam definitely did, especially after Meg’s earlier performance. Ruby’s suggestion was a reasonable one, no matter how much it griped him to follow her directions. He turned the water on to let it warm up and waited for her to leave, but after a minute it was obvious she had no intention of moving.  
  
“Can I have some privacy?”  
  
Ruby rolled her eyes but turned her back with exaggerated movements. Sam skinned out of his clothes and tossed them onto the tile before sliding behind the shower curtain. He hissed in pain as the water hit his wounded arm, then set about the grim task of scrubbing it out as much as possible. There was a half-empty bottle of what seemed to be a body wash with the label peeled off, and some generic, flower scented shampoo that lathered up well. Ruby had been right about the state of his feet after his barefoot hike in the forest, but the damage seemed mostly limited to shallow cuts and scrapes. He was highly aware of the demon on the other side of the curtain washing the blood out of his clothes, and after a few minutes the high pitched whine of the hairdryer, but she didn’t speak and Sam had nothing to say to her. He finished rinsing off the soap and stood under the spray until it started to turn cold, then twisted the faucet off.  
  
“Are my clothes dry?”  
  
“Mostly. Sit on the edge of the tub so I can tape up your arm.”  
  
“How about you give me my clothes first,” Sam hedged.  
  
He heard her indelicate snort through the flimsy opaque vinyl. “I just scrubbed your clothes clean with a bar of soap in a sink. You aren’t getting them back until I’m sure you’re done bleeding on them.”  
  
Which left Sam with the alternative options of either getting out of the shower naked and possibly having to fight a demon for his pajamas, or staying in it... indefinitely. He wrestled his pride back and finally sat gracelessly on the edge of the tub and pulled the curtain aside enough for Ruby to treat his arm. Clothes weren’t going to protect him from an attack, or anything else, in his current state. But there was a level of vulnerability in being naked that he wasn’t willing to subject himself to. Not unless he absolutely had to, or there was something to be gained from it. Ruby had a point about his injury, though; after being scrubbed and cleaned out in the shower, it was bleeding freely again, spotting watery blood on the white porcelain of the old bathtub.  
  
Thankfully, other than a quick glance over and an eye roll, the demon kept her comments focused on the wound she carefully finished cleaning then slathered down with antiseptic and bandaged.  
  
“This could probably use some stitches,” she observed, pressing the last of the tape into place with surprising gentleness.  
  
Sam flexed his arm and grimaced at the pull of torn flesh. “It’s fine.”  
  
“Demon blood doesn’t have the same healing properties that your friend’s does,” Ruby remarked.  
  
“What do you know about that?” Sam asked warily.  
  
“Not much,” she admitted easily, tossing bloody gauze into the trash and handing Sam a skimpy, threadbare towel. “But like most of the other monsters out there trying to stay under the humans’ radar, they don’t give much of a damn about the demonic. We aren’t the ones they’re hiding from usually, so they don’t make the same effort to keep their secrets from us. They go their way, we go ours.”  
  
“You aren’t doing a great job of going your own way right now,” Sam growled, drying off briskly before he pulled his clothes on behind the curtain. The bloodstains were still obvious, now rinsed to a rusty brown. There wasn’t anything washing could do for the holes from the Hellhound’s teeth, but Sam would take what he could get.  
  
Ruby didn’t respond and the silence from the other side of the curtain was such that he was surprised to find her perched on the sink when he finally stepped out.  
  
“Thanks,” Sam said reluctantly.  
  
“Like I said,” Ruby hopped down and pushed the door wide, “I didn’t do it for you.” She disappeared down the hallway, leaving Sam alone in the wan yellow light from the ancient fixture overhead. He waited until he heard the front door open and close again, then headed back to the kitchen. There was something he needed to get.

~~~~~~~

Sam was lying on the bed in his room reading when the next round of company showed up. The battered book he had found wasn’t really holding his attention, but it was better than staring at walls and the irony of reading _The Count Of Monte Cristo_ in his present situation wasn’t lost on him. The clock showed fifteen minutes to sunrise and Sam had been hopeful that he might be able to slip into oblivion without any more incidents. Every minute he was left alone was another free minute Dean had to find him.  
  
He was just giving thought to getting under the covers when Meg shoved the door open so hard the knob took a chunk out of the drywall. Sam scrambled to sit up as she entered with two other presumed demons on her heels and Ruby trailing behind. Sam couldn’t say he knew Ruby well, but he didn’t think she looked happy.  
  
“What do you want?” he demanded, standing up.  
  
“To save you from your evil vampire ways, remember?” Meg asked sweetly. She grabbed Ruby by the arm and yanked her forward. “This one looks delicious, doesn’t she?” Meg didn’t wait for a response from Sam before pulling a wicked looking knife from a sheath at Ruby’s waist and slicing deeply into her unresisting arm. The blade was serrated and cast sparks as it left an ugly furrow in the pale skin of Ruby’s forearm.  
  
“This is a cute toy; you’ll have to tell me where you shop,” Meg said with narrowed eyes.  
  
Ruby glared but didn’t reply. She twisted her arm so that most of the rich, dark blood dripped into the glass one of the other demons held under the wound. Sam had no idea how Dean would feel about the tableau before him, but he was distantly grateful that all he felt was revulsion. And fear. He was already so screwed up, he couldn’t imagine what more demonic blood would do to him-- but he was certain it wouldn’t be good.  
  
“I won’t drink that.” Sam backed away as much as he could, but with five people in the tiny room there wasn’t anywhere for him to escape to.  
  
Meg glanced at the other two demons and they grabbed Sam, holding him in place. There was no give to their grip no matter how he twisted. She held up the half-full glass and stepped towards him. “You wouldn’t have to drink so much if you didn’t have that nasty infection we have to fight. Now suck it up, and open wide.”  
  
“I _can’t_ drink that,” Sam insisted, letting some of his panic edge his voice.  
  
Meg stopped her advance and frowned. “That’s a little extreme, don’t you think? I’m sure you _can_ ; there isn’t anything wrong with your throat, is there? We’re going to prove it right now.”  
  
“I thought you wanted me alive,” Sam hissed, giving up the fight for the moment.  
  
“What are you talking about?” she demanded.  
  
“That blood. _Demon_ blood. It will kill me if I swallow any now. If you want me alive, you can’t give me that. Like you said, I have this _infection_.”  
  
“And this is just something you and your boyfriend _happened_ to discuss? A little pillow-talk maybe?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm, but Sam pressed on. Desperation was the mother of invention, and if his childhood had prepared him for anything, it was lying on the spot.  
  
“You’ve been interfering in my life since I was a baby! You killed my mother, got me ostracized from my own people, and since I’ve been with Dean you’ve been stalking our back trail all over the country! So yeah, you could say we’ve discussed a few possibilities. We know you’ve done this,” he nodded towards the glass in her hand, “to me before; it seemed like something you might try again if you got your hands on me. But it’s too late. If you make me drink that now, the reaction could kill me. How does _that_ fit into your _plans_?” he spat.  
  
Meg searched his face, looking indecisive for a moment. The demons holding Sam shifted restlessly, and back by the doorframe Ruby stood like a statue, the wound in her forearm gone to nothing but a few blood smears and no expression at all on her face.  
  
“You’re lying,” Meg said flatly. “Or you would have mentioned this when we spoke before.” The demons’ grip on Sam tightened again. He went limp, the move so unexpected that he actually managed to pull free from one of them. Sam seized the advantage, immediately throwing all of his weight into the demon still holding on to his arm, causing it to stagger and then they were both on the floor in a confusing tangle of limbs. It only took a second for Sam to slip the capsules hidden in the pocket of his sweatpants into his mouth under the cover of the chaos. He had barely swallowed before he was grabbed around the waist and hurled onto the bed.  
  
Pinned flat on his back, Sam was too busy fighting his gag reflex from swallowing the garlic to worry about Meg crawling up on the bed next to him, but she had his undivided attention when she threw a leg across his stomach and straddled him. She didn’t weigh that much, but with the other two demons holding him down she was enough to stop him from being able to wrench free.  
  
The next few minutes were some of the worst Sam could remember. The sun hovering just beneath the horizon had warning signals shrieking through his head as the poison in his stomach was starting its inexorable work. The demons held him pinned in place just as fiercely by his wounded shoulder as his well one, and worst of all was the demon sitting astride his waist pouring blood down his throat. She forced his mouth open and she wasn’t being very particular about where the thick, metallic liquid ended up. As much seemed to be running up his nose as into his mouth while he sputtered and struggled. Despite Sam’s best efforts, he couldn’t help but swallow some and he was still choking on it as the sun finally rose and slammed him mercifully down into darkness.

  
 ****

 **Chapter Three**

In the two days since the demons had snatched Sam, Dean had hit a wall. He had torn through the miserable town they had been holed up in, spent hours on the phone, and traded more favors than he cared to think about-- all for nothing. As far as the world was concerned, it was as if Sam had simply vanished into thin air and no one Dean spoke with had any idea of how to find the demons that had stolen him. Dean knew from talking to Sam that even the human hunters, who had more reason than anyone to be interested in that information, didn’t know how to track the demonic.

There was only one man rumor said might have the ability, but getting the information without killing him would be tricky, if the asshole could be convinced to share at all.

Fortunately they had something in common, and Dean had something he needed. Even if John Winchester didn’t know it yet.

Tracking a hunter wasn’t nearly as much of a challenge as trying to track a demon, and when Dean finally ran his quarry to ground he felt stupid for not having simply guessed. Bobby Singer’s wonderland of a junkyard was just as heaped up, unkempt and trapped as it had been the last time he had visited, but this time Dean was desperate and furious. It wasn’t the best state for a vampire to be in when dealing with hunters, but he was out of any other options. And quickly running out of time. Someone in Sam’s position could usually only survive about a week without the blood of the vampire turning them. Sam was different in some respects because of his demonic issues, but Dean didn’t think that would get him off the hook. It might give Sam more time, but it could equally likely mean _less_ time, or it might not make a damn bit of difference at all. Dean couldn’t feel Sam like he should have been able to, but he felt certain Sam was still alive.

He clung to that for calmness as he circled the house, deciding how best to make his approach.

He didn’t want to be trapped up against the building, not until he found out how receptive John was going to be at least, so Dean gathered pebbles out of the dirt of the yard and tossed them towards the kitchen window. Shades were drawn across it but there was light visible through them.

Dean was almost out of his second handful when a figure emerged from the back door, shotgun first.

“There something I can maybe help you with?” Bobby Singer called out in sharp annoyance.

From the position he had chosen to stand in, Bobby could not have made out more of Dean than the dim shadow of his general shape. He took the few steps forward to bring himself into the circle of light from the back porch. Bobby swore, but the tip of the gun lowered a notch.

“Let me guess: you ain’t here to see me?”

Dean snorted. “John Winchester and I have business to discuss. Tell him to get his paternally incompetent ass out here before I have to get nasty about it.”

The distinctive cock of a shotgun from a few feet behind his head wasn’t much of a surprise since he had been aware of the steady, cautious footsteps for several minutes, but Dean still had to bite back the instinct to take the weapon away and beat the man with it, unfortunately. He had gone through too much trouble to arrange a meeting where Winchester could feel he had the upper hand to give in to a petty impulse. Retribution could wait until after he had Sam back and secured. Then maybe he and John could... chat.

“I appreciate you saving me the trouble of hunting you down; most monsters aren’t that accommodating,” Winchester drawled.

“I’m all sorts of helpful,” Dean said sarcastically. “I thought you might want to talk with me.”

“Talk with you? About how you are corrupting my son, or about how much I’m going to enjoy putting a bullet in your head before I cut it off?” On the surface, John’s voice was cool and skeptical, threatening and not at all willing to compromise, much better controlled than two days earlier when the underlying emotions had been broadcast clearly. Dean was still betting on it being a mask, though. It wasn’t that he thought no man could abandon his child as comprehensively as John had seemed to, he just didn’t think the man who had raised Sam could have. Regardless of what Sam seemed to think. Dean had a hell of a lot more years judging people’s characters and had found over his many, many decades that the apple didn’t usually fall that far from the tree.

But he had been wrong before. All actions were gambles.

“How about we talk about how you need my help to find him before you get to spend the rest of your miserable life wondering about what happened to _your son_ that you sold out to _demons_?!”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” John growled.

“This is starting to sound familiar, but you know something about what I’m talking about or you would have pulled that trigger already,” Dean snapped, out of patience for games.

“Maybe I just want to know what you are before I burn your bones.”

“Your son is suffering god-knows-what at the hands of the creatures that killed your wife and all you’re interested in is another footnote for your freaking bestiary?! Maybe the rest of your peers were right about a Winchester working for the devil; they just got the wrong one.” Behind him Dean could hear John’s breathing roughen and had no doubt the man was resisting urges similar to Dean’s own. Without Sam between them they would have happily tried to kill each other.

But then, without Sam, it was doubtful their paths would ever have crossed in the first place.

Finally, John spoke up again. “You’d better start talking damn fast.”

“I want the same thing you want: Sam safe.” Dean wasn’t actually entirely sure that was what John wanted, but he knew John _didn’t_ want Sam in the hands of demons, and that was all Dean needed to get what he was after.

“That’s what I’m supposed to think you’re so concerned about: his _safety_?” The rising note of angry incredulity in John’s voice made Dean clench his teeth.

“Whatever is going on between me and Sam is consensual. Which means you don’t get a goddamned say. You want to try and talk him out of it? You go right ahead. You want to kill him over it? You have to go through me. If you really care about him you’ll shut your mouth and walk away after this is over, but any of those options are better than what he faces now, which I think you goddamn well know! But all of it is just hot air if we can’t get him back, and the fact that you’re sitting on your ass in a junkyard tells me that you’re not having a whole lot of luck in that department.”

“What do you _want_?”

Dean spread empty hands helplessly. “I don’t know how to track demons; the rumor mill says you do.”

“If I could track demons, what would I need _you_ for?” John asked scornfully.

“Other than sheer bad-assery and my usual charming ways? To deal with whatever the freaking holdup is. Every minute they have him worsens our chances of getting him back... intact. So let’s put our cards on the table and our issues aside long enough to do what we both want done. Afterwards we can find a suitably dark alley and beat the crap out of each other to your heart’s content.”

John said nothing for such a long moment that Dean swore and started to walk away. “Fine. I’ll drop Singer a postcard when I find Sam’s corpse for you. Since you’re so concerned about him and all.”

He only made it about five feet before John spoke up. “Wait.”

Dean turned to face him for the first time. He hadn’t paid a lot of attention during their last encounter, but Dean was still struck with the distinct impression that the man had aged in the two days since. The shotgun had been lowered and the hunter was watching him with conflicting emotions in his dark, deep-set eyes. Finally he seemed to come to some kind of conclusion.

“What are you?” John asked flatly.

“I’m a vampire; you know that.” Dean rubbed a hand in reminder over the phantom ache in his chest from a wound that was days healed.

John’s eyes narrowed. “That shaft was soaked in dead man’s blood and went straight through your heart. You sprang up off the ground like I’d inflicted a paper cut. You think I’m green? You aren’t a vampire.”

Dean shrugged. “You missed.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You can _think_ whatever the hell you want. Can you track a demon or not?”

John didn’t look like he was going to let the subject lie, but he answered Dean’s question readily enough. “It’s not that easy. I can find places where demonic activity is likely, trace where it’s probably been happening, but I can’t draw a line from one place to another and say for sure where they’ve taken Sam.”

“It sounds like your method sucks.”

John’s nostrils flared.

“Do _you_ know where he is?” he demanded.

Dean crossed his arms and looked away.

“At least I’ve got leads,” John snorted in derision.

“What leads?” Dean asked intently.

Bobby cut in then, reminding the two that they were not alone in the scrap yard. “As much as I’m enjoying this spirited discussion, my arm’s gettin’ tired. What are we doing, John?”

John met Dean’s gaze over the shotgun. “We’re finding my son. One way or another.”

“Then let’s everyone get their asses into the house,” Bobby grumbled. “The mosquitoes have had enough of my blood and I can already tell this is the kind of night that’s going to require heavy drinking.”

~~~~~~~

Inside, Bobby’s house was almost exactly as Dean remembered. The few minutes he had spent there, years earlier when Sam had finally decided to confront his old family friend for answers, had left Dean familiar with the layout and the knowledge that Bobby wasn’t much neater inside than outside his property. On that trip, Sam had sat in one of the kitchen’s rickety wooden chairs while Dean leaned against the wall and Bobby finally confessed the big secret that had shadowed all of Sam’s life, the demon blood he had been fed the night his mother was murdered. It was that chair Dean took now, recognizing it by the patterns of wood whirl and dings that he had barely been aware of noting.  
  
Bobby and John were having a heated discussion on the porch, but Dean made no effort to listen in. There was no need; what was coming through the walls without effort made the point of the conversation perfectly clear. “Insane,” “crazy,” “desperate,” were being repeated at some volume. He wasn’t at all surprised when John entered the room alone a few minutes later.  
  
“Bobby not want to help rescue Sam?” Dean asked pleasantly.  
  
“He has some business in town.”  
  
Dean gave the clock on the microwave that read eleven a pointed glance, but refrained from comment.  
  
“If you’ve got any weapons, I want to see them on the table.”  
  
“You going to search me to find out?” Dean asked. John’s baleful stare didn’t flicker. Dean rolled his eyes. “I don’t need guns; I have hands.”  
  
He put his palms flat on the table and gave John a challenging look. John was apparently willing to take his word at face value, because he shrugged off his coat and leaned the shotgun against the wall, then slumped down into a chair. Careless, or just exhausted.  
  
“I didn’t sell my son out to the demons,” John said flatly.  
  
“I find it to be an amazing coincidence that you completely vanish from his life, we go on the run from demons for a couple of years, they can’t find us, then suddenly one of the greatest hunters alive turns up on our doorstep and presto magic-- Sam is snatched!”  
  
“What _possible_ reason can you think of that I would be a part of that?!”  
  
“I can’t think of a reason you would have left him in the first place,” Dean snapped. “Especially considering all the freaking family history you left him in the dark about. You might as well have shoved him bloody into a pool of piranhas as what you did. It took the hunters, what, a couple of months to turn on him after you vanished? If you wanted him dead you should have had the balls to do it yourself, and if you _didn’t_ want him dead-- then what the fuck were you thinking?!”  
  
John’s brows drew together and the hand on the table was fisted so tightly that the bones of his knuckles showed yellow through his skin. “I don’t owe you any explanations for things that are between me and _my son_.”  
  
“That might be true, if it was between you and Sam. But now it’s _me_ and Sam, and you’re the asshole that keeps almost getting him killed! He’s _mine_ now, it’s _my_ blood in his veins, and _my_ bed he sleeps in! All I need from you is where the demons took him, and then you can crawl on back to your hole and rot.” Dean waited for the explosion, would have welcomed it as an excuse to lash back-- but John didn’t seem as offended as Dean had expected.  
  
“Your blood in his veins?” the hunter echoed in an odd tone.  
  
“Well, you know, all it takes is a drop,” Dean hedged, swearing silently at himself for his carelessness.  
  
“To do what?”  
  
“What do you mean ‘ _to do what_ ’?” Dean demanded. “To turn someone into a vampire! You think Sam was taking up knitting with me?”  
  
John scooted his chair back from the table. It did not escape Dean’s notice that the shotgun was easily within the hunter’s reach again from his new position. “What I think is that vampires might not like sunlight, but they can move around freely in it. But you said Sam was so unconscious when the demons took him that there wasn’t even a struggle. I think dead man’s blood is an incapacitating poison to a vampire, but you took a shaft soaked in it to the heart and barely noticed. I think my son would rather have died than become a monster, but Bobby swears he was keeping company with you voluntarily. You say it’s _your blood in his veins_ , but like you also said, it only takes a drop. And he’s _not_ like whatever you are, not if he sleeps in the daytime while you walk around free. Not yet. I think you say a lot of things that don’t add up, and I want answers. Now.”  
  
“Sometimes knowledge is a dangerous thing,” Dean finally said, meeting John’s level gaze.  
  
“You level with me now, or you walk out that door.”  
  
“At the cost of Sam’s life?” Dean asked coldly.  
  
“If you can’t trust me enough to even tell me _what the hell you are_ , then keeping you near me is a bigger risk than doing this on my own.”  
  
Dean locked his eyes with John’s for a full minute, but saw nothing but resolve in them. His internal swearing kicked up another notch, but indecisiveness wasn’t a fault of his profession and it sounded like John was at least _considering_ being reasonable. “If you repeat what I tell you to anyone, if any of my people even _suspect_ you know, they will kill you. They will kill anyone you tell, and any one they think you _might_ have told. They will kill me, which you probably don’t give a damn about, but they will also kill Sam. It won’t help you hunt me, and it won’t help you find my kind.”  
  
“Keep talking,” John grunted.  
  
“I told you the truth in the first place: I’m a vampire.” Dean shrugged. “Just... a little different.”  
  
“Different _how_?”  
  
“What do you think I’m going to tell you?” Dean demanded, exasperated, and not about to give a hunter a detailed rundown on strengths and weaknesses. At least not a hunter who wasn’t in the process of joining them. “I’m not a monster zoologist, or whatever the hell you would call an expert in this kind of crap. It takes a decade to become one of us, we don’t give a damn about community living, we’ve been known to avoid Italian cooking, and I personally enjoy a nice beer on occasion. During the transition, we’re more... vulnerable. The rules are different.”  
  
John looked unimpressed. “But you still drink human blood?”  
  
Dean rolled his eyes. “Half the things out there drink human blood. We generally use a lower octane, and when we do indulge, the donors almost always survive. We aren’t a scourge on humanity. At least not by any _reasonable_ standards.”  
  
“You said _almost_ always.”  
  
“Sometimes they know a little too much,” Dean replied pointedly.  
  
John seemed to consider that for a few minutes. “A decade, huh?”  
  
“Yes,” Dean snapped. “But the fucking demon blood had Sam all screwed up. He sleeps in the daytime, he might combust in the sunlight. I don’t even know where he falls in the process now. There’s a possibility...” Dean trailed off, frustrated and worried.  
  
“A possibility of _what_?”  
  
“Being cut off from your maker’s blood will kill you, and it only takes about a week. Sam’s been gone for two days already...” He hated the _franticness_ of his worry. Hated feeling so out of control of himself, the panic instinctive with a fledgling in peril. He couldn’t _wait_ for Sam to finish the transition so he could have his nice, steady nerves back.  
  
John interrupted his thoughts. “That should give us about five more days then.”  
  
“Did you miss the part where I said he was screwed up?” Dean growled. “He has things going on that don’t usually happen until year eight, and things he should have at month three that haven’t happened! I don’t _know_ how long he’s got. I don’t know anything except that the fucking demons took him, and I need to get him back.”  


  


 


	2. The Crossroads Of Eden - Section Two

  
****

****

**Chapter Four**

When Sam opened his eyes the following sunset, he immediately twisted into a pain-wracked ball of misery. The closest thing he could remember experiencing to the sensation seizing every muscle of his body was being struck by a car in middle school. The details of that incident were fuzzy, other than the blaze of headlights in his eyes and the strange echoing crunch of impact, but waking in the hospital had felt _exactly_ like this.  
  
He forced himself to take deep breaths and try to relax and master the pain, testing each limb individually as he slowly straightened out. When he was finally still and at ease, the pain gradually faded until it was more of a full-body ache than the debilitating distraction it had started as. Other than the throbbing wound in his arm from the Hellhound’s teeth, Sam couldn’t detect any other specific injury. One outstretched hand brushed something on the bedside table and Sam turned his head to look. A glass of water was sitting there, and he was suddenly desperately thirsty. Sam swallowed in anticipation, mouth dry, shocked at how sore his throat was.  
  
Dried blood smeared on his hand reminded him of the straits he had been in when sunrise had stolen his consciousness. To his surprise, a cursory inspection showed that other than the spatters on his shirt and the bed sheets around him, most of the spilled blood seemed to have been cleaned from his face and skin. He had trouble believing Meg or her anonymous helpers would have bothered, which left Ruby. He didn’t know how he felt about that; she just seemed... different, than the others. More human, maybe. Definitely more interested in him. Which, since she was a demon, was possibly not a good thing.  
  
Sam sat up carefully and reached for the glass. It was still cool as if it had been drawn recently and he drank gratefully, rinsing the foul, lingering taste from his mouth and ignoring the uneasy rumbling of his stomach.  
  
“Kinda surprised that you were telling the truth, about the blood and all.”  
  
He dropped the glass, startled, spilling the water onto his lap and blankets where it was immediately absorbed. Sam threw the pale green covers back and swung his legs over the edge, grimacing at protesting muscles. Across the room in the shadows, Ruby was slouched indolently against the wall with a stillness nothing human could manage. She walked forward when he didn’t stand up and perched on the foot of his bed. Sam narrowed his eyes but said nothing.  
  
“Meg was surprised too,” Ruby added after a moment.  
  
“So she believes me now?”  
  
Ruby shrugged. “Let’s just say she’s reconsidering her options.”  
  
“Good,” Sam growled. He picked up the empty glass and pushed himself to his feet. Ruby followed his ginger progress down the hall to the bathroom where he filled the glass back up and sat on the edge of the tub to drink it.  
  
“Is there any particular reason you’re following me around?” he finally asked when she showed no sign of leaving. “It’s been pretty clearly demonstrated to me just how screwed I am and I’m not up for another round with Meg’s pets today. I’m just going to drink this, find some more painkillers and go back to bed.”  
  
Ruby hopped up on the edge of the sink. “You’re more interesting than watching the grass grow. It’s not like I can go anywhere else.”  
  
Sam filled the glass again from the tub. “Don’t you and the rest of my fan club have a deck of cards to play with or something? I’m okay with suffering alone, really.”  
  
“That’s gratitude. Next time I’ll just let the blood congeal.” Which answered Sam’s suspicions about who had cleaned him up. “Besides,” she gave him a sidelong glance, “do you think all demons want the same things? Maybe I’m just not a team player.”  
  
Sam snorted in disbelief. “So you’re going to try and tell me you have my best interests close to your... well, you don’t exactly have a _heart_ , now do you? And I’m pretty sure it was _your_ blood I was choking on when I passed out.”  
  
Ruby twisted a long strand of her hair around one finger.  
  
“I’m also not stupid,” she said flatly. “This is Meg’s show; I’m just here for the popcorn and cheap entertainment.” She looked off sharply towards the kitchen.  
  
“What?” Sam demanded.  
  
Ruby’s expression was hard to read as she slid back to her feet and gave him a look that if Sam had been in a more charitable mood he might have called it pity. “Company.”  
  
She had barely finished speaking when the bathroom door was shoved wide open and a lean man strode in. Sam almost fell into the tub in surprise at the intrusion. He was vaguely aware of Meg and another figure lurking in the hallway behind the newcomer, but most of his attention was focused on the intruder’s shocking eyes. A yellow-eyed demon had slaughtered his mother on the ceiling of his nursery, had poisoned him with its blood, and in all of his and his father’s long years of hunting, only one demon had ever had eyes like that.  
  
“You,” Sam breathed in a low voice.  
  
The demon smiled broadly. “Just wanted to check in on you, Sam. Make sure you were all safe and cozy here in your little vacation home. You know, there are hundreds of special kiddies out there just like you, and none of them have given me half the headache. I hope you turn out to be worth it, I really do; otherwise, I might have to come up with something extra  _special_ to show my appreciation for all the trouble you’ve caused.”  
  
“ _I’ve_ caused?” Sam asked in disbelief. “What the hell do you _want_ with me?!”  
  
The demon looked surprised and his voice dripped with condescension.  
  
“Why, Sam, I want what any concerned parent wants for their child. I want to know that you are healthy and safe, and some place I can get my hands on you when I need to. Though in your case, I suppose we have to add _human_ to that little laundry list-- you didn’t _really_ think you were going to get away with that, did you? You didn’t think I would go through all that trouble to bring you into the fold only to let you slip off with a bad influence the minute my back was turned? Kids these days.” He shook his head.  
  
Sam didn’t know what he was thinking. One minute the demon was talking and the next moment Sam had dropped his glass and was lunging for him without even registering the movement.  
  
“You aren’t my parent,” he snarled, as the demon flipped a hand and sent him slamming off his feet and into the wall, pinned by invisible force. “You destroyed my life! Let me go!“ Sam yelled, struggling against the constricting pressure.  
  
The yellow-eyed demon’s smile didn’t dim at all as he motioned Ruby out to the hallway. “Let’s have a chat while Sam here takes a little time out to collect his nerves.” He shifted his gaze to an unnamed demon in the hallway. “Put him in his room; keep him there.”  
  
Ruby cast Sam an unreadable glance and followed the yellow-eyed demon out. As they walked out, the force pinning Sam in place vanished like a popped bubble. His feet had barely touched the floor before his guard herded him down the hall into the tiny bedroom. Sam didn’t resist, thoughts tumbling over themselves as he struggled with the shock of the unexpected meeting. In that instant, the past four years dissolved like candy-floss and he was again a hunter with the elusive quarry that his life was dedicated to destroy close at hand. Tantalizing, frustratingly, _finally_ close-- for all the good it did him. In his current situation the demon might as well have been on the moon.  
  
For the first time in a long time, Sam genuinely missed his dad.  
  
His guard took up a position outside the door with a supremely bored expression, paying Sam little apparent attention. Inside the room, Sam didn’t bother turning on the lights, just paced back and forth on the creaky floorboards in the dark, limited options churning in his head.  
  
After a few minutes he was calmer and slid down to sit against the wall. Without the relentless squeak of the ancient floor he realized he could hear the faint buzz of conversation through the glass of the window. A quick glance at the door showed the back of the demon that loitered there, so Sam crawled over to the window and forced it up an inch or so. Immediately the faint buzz crystallized into intelligible words, and the conversation made his blood freeze.  
  
“...but he survived,” the yellow-eyed demon said, sounding unimpressed.  
  
Sam could hear the shrug in Meg’s voice when she replied. “You want him alive. The reaction looked serious. I don’t know much about vampires of any kind. He might be telling the truth.”  
  
The yellow-eyed demon made a noncommittal sound. “Or he might not. Show me.”  
  
Sam tensed; he had to get to the kitchen before anything else was poured down his throat or the game would be up. Leaving the bottle of garlic pills safely anonymous in a pile of other bottles had seemed the best gamble at the time, but he hadn’t considered that he might not be able to get access again. The demon guarding him was built like a football player and Sam was already injured. If he had to fight his way out... Fighting against them the night before and in the bathroom had been futile and Sam knew his chances of breaking past his guard were slim-to-none, but any chance was better than the certainty of what would happen if he stayed.  
  
Meg’s voice snapped his attention back to the conversation outside. “Now?”  
  
“In a bit. First I want to hear your report on the activity in Peoria...” The voices receded as the demons moved out of range of his hearing. Sam forced himself to relax a little. Luck had bought him some time and now he needed to make the most of it by not showing how desperate he was to get out of the room. He ignored the demon guarding the door and picked up _The Count Of Monte Cristo_ from the bedside table. Sam flipped through the pages for a while but registered nothing that his eyes skimmed over. When he estimated about fifteen minutes had passed, Sam set the book back down and slid casually off the bed.  
  
“I need to get some more water. I don’t feel well.”  
  
The demon gave him an appraising look, then motioned Sam into the hallway. But when Sam made to head towards the kitchen the demon grabbed him just below the bandages on his bad arm. Sam sucked in a sharp breath as he felt thin scabs split.  
  
“There’s water in the bathroom,” the demon grunted, pointing towards the closer room.  
  
“But there’s glasses in the kitchen,” Sam pointed out. “It’s not like I’m masterminding some great escape.” He glanced meaningfully at the bright red stains slowly seeping through his bandages. “Meg made her point.”  
  
His guard slowly released him. Sam continued into the kitchen, painfully aware of the sullen presence trailing as close as his shadow. Once he reached his thankfully deserted destination he made a show of drinking several glasses of water. His claims of thirst hadn’t been entirely a ruse; after two days of imprisonment with only a single glass of water, and the blood that had been forced on him, his body was screaming for a little more in the way of liquid and nutrition. Sam had a sensory flash of the taste of Dean’s blood like the sweetest of sun-ripened berries over his tongue and his stomach growled. He grimaced, but at least his body differentiated. There had been absolutely nothing in Ruby’s blood that had appealed to him on any level. Having had some time to consider the matter, Sam didn’t think it would have been any different even if he had already transformed. Dean had told him that no vampire, of any stripe, had anything to gain from the dead. They could feed from the living, and in some respect from each other, but never from those who had already passed. It was anathema to lesser vampires, and just futile for Dean’s kind. What was a demon but the damned inhabiting the deceased? At least Sam _hoped_ they were deceased, the alternative made his skin crawl.  
  
Sam couldn’t just riffle the collection of bottles on the table without drawing the demon’s attention to his actions. Instead, he opened the refrigerator to see what there was to eat. The demon shifted impatiently but didn’t object, so Sam continued looking for food. Five minutes later, he took a seat at the table with a jar of pickles, two apples, a few slices of cheese and some stale bread. He munched steadily through the assortment of food while poking idly through the collection of supplement bottles scattered around the table. The demon’s attention had drifted again, its gaze fixed though the window into something out in the yard, so it didn’t notice when Sam’s idle poking turned almost frantic. Only after he had been through the entire collection three times did Sam let the truth sink in.  
  
The bottle he was looking for was gone.  
  
Sam swallowed his renewed panic, mumbled something about granola, and stood up to make a careful search of every drawer, nook and cranny in the kitchen. The demon glanced at him occasionally, but whatever was in the yard was more interesting than Sam hunting through cabinets. By the time he had finished searching, Sam was certain that the little white bottle he desperately needed was truly missing. In his mind’s eye, Sam could clearly see it sitting on the table where he had left it when he had followed Ruby...  
  
Ruby.  
  
Her voice floated out of the darkness of the hallway as if conjured by Sam’s thought. “We might have to wait a while. It looks like he might not be hungry anymore.”  
  
His head shot up just in time to see her, Meg and the yellow-eyed demon no one had bothered introducing him to walk into the kitchen. Sam definitely didn’t like the expression on the new demon’s face now any more than he had liked it earlier.  
  
“Sorry.” Sam climbed to his feet and crossed his arms defensively. “If I’d known you guys were going to join me, I would have fixed more.”  
  
“Oh, don’t worry, Cupcake. We brought dessert.” Meg’s sly smile didn’t touch the calculating coolness in her eyes. She reached out to brush a finger over the knife at Ruby’s hip and Sam’s heart sank. Time was up.  
  
“I thought we all agreed that was a bad thing, remember? You wanting me alive and all that jazz?”  
  
“I don’t want you at all. But that’s up to the boss here.” She jerked a thumb towards the yellow-eyed demon.  
  
Ruby was conspicuously silent. Sam’s attention was on Yellow-Eyes as he spread his hands in an apologetic manner and spoke up. “What can I say, Sam? I’m just a ‘don’t believe it ‘til I see it,’ kind of guy. Meg has been telling me all sorts of crazy tales and I thought I would stop by to see what I can do to help out.”  
  
Sam stepped back, feeling irrationally safer with the table between them. “There isn’t anything you can do. Demon blood will kill me as long as I have vampire blood in my veins. And if I don’t get _more_ vampire blood, I’ll die anyway. Sorry, guess you’ll just have to find another toy to play with.”  
  
“I heard that part, and don’t think I don’t appreciate your helpfulness and all. But I think I’m going to have to see a practical demonstration.” The yellow-eyed demon nodded, and Sam’s guard and another demon from the hallway stepped forward to grab him.  
  
“Last time almost killed me! What kind of good can I be to you dead?!” Sam demanded, backing away.  
  
“You aren’t doing me any good now.” The yellow-eyed demon shrugged. “You seem fairly resilient. You survived last time; I’m sure one more round won’t be much of a problem.”  
  
Sam swore and fought, but like the previous night, he was overmatched and was inexorably dragged back towards the bedroom. Halfway there he caught hold of the edge of a wall and clung until a particularly hard yank on his arm ripped his grip free. The yank tore the wounds in his upper arm wide open all over again and Sam screamed despite himself. A second later he heard Ruby snarl something and the grasping hands let go. Sam slipped to his knees cradling his elbow in his good hand and blinked back tears of pain.  
  
“Sam.” Ruby crouched in front of him. “This is stupid. You can’t win and you’re only going to get hurt. Didn’t your father teach you about picking your battles?”  
  
“You don’t know a damn thing about my dad,” Sam spat at her.  
  
“I know he was too good of a hunter to waste his strength instead of biding his time.” She stood and held her hand out.  
  
From his awkward sprawl against the wall, and with one of his arms almost unusable, Sam was left with the unenviable choice of accepting her help or being dragged down the hall. He grudgingly reached for her hand. “ _Is_ too good of a hunter, unless you know something I don’t.”  
  
She hauled him to his feet, but pulled too hard at the end and he staggered into her. While Sam fought to rebalance, Ruby slung her free arm around the back of his neck and smirked into his face from inches away.  
  
“If I’d known you were into this, we could have worked something out sooner.” Then, before he could reply, she locked her lips onto his and buried her tongue in his mouth. Sam heard Meg’s laughter over the blood pounding in his ears and was about to bite down, but then realized that whatever Ruby was doing with her tongue wasn’t like any kiss he had ever had before. The faint flavor of garlic hit his taste buds and he stopped resisting her attempt to shift something into his mouth. The hard tablets were a little dissolved by the time Sam had them tucked under his tongue, but he felt nothing but gratitude when she slipped her arm free and let him reel back.  
  
Gratitude and confusion. He swallowed the tablets and made only token resistance when the jailer from the kitchen caught him by the good arm and dragged him the rest of the way to his room. Now that he had swallowed the garlic, he needed what was coming to happen fast before he started getting sick. Sam deliberately didn’t look at any of the other demons for fear they would read something on his face, and sank onto the bed when Meg ordered him to sit.  
  
Sam didn’t watch as Meg made another deep slice into Ruby’s forearm. His nose caught the heavy scent of blood and he wasn’t sure if the queasiness was from the garlic or from the knowledge of what was about to happen. Polished shoes came into his view and he looked up to meet the yellow-eyed demon’s mask of humanity. There was speculation in the gaze that made sweat break out along Sam’s spine.  
  
“You’ve become awfully cooperative all of a sudden.”  
  
“You’re going to pour it down my throat whether I fight you or not,” Sam retorted sullenly. “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you believe me.”  
  
“I thought it was going to kill you,” the demon pointed out. “Aren’t you still worried about that?”  
  
“Sounds like I win either way.”  
  
The demon looked amused and stepped back. Meg held the cup half full of rich, dark blood out.  
  
Sam was tempted to smack the cup from her hand, but he could tell from the ache in his head and the roiling in his belly that there was no time for games like that. He took the plastic cup and drained its contents in three swallows. The blood was still warm and coated his mouth and throat with an iron-tinged thickness that made him want to retch just on principle. He lay down, ignoring the low conversation at the bedside and concentrating on his own misery. The last time, Meg had jumped him just before sunrise and he hadn’t had to consciously suffer the results of his machinations, but there were still hours before dawn this time.  
  
In less than ten minutes Sam was biting back screams as every drop of blood in his body felt like it was boiling out of his pores. By the time the convulsions started, he had already, mercifully, blacked out.

~~~~~~~

Dean pulled open the heavy screen door and let it slam behind him with a bang. Bobby glanced up from the paper he was reading after a deliberate pause and looked pointedly between the vampire standing in his kitchen and the screen door. “Don’t you need to be asking my permission for something?”  
  
Dean’s expression was equally unimpressed. “What do you think this is, some B horror flick? You can take your permission and--”  
  
“Anything?” the voice from the hallway interrupted the conversation, such as it was. Dean allowed himself to be distracted.  
  
“I’ve had about as much success as you have.” He dropped unceremoniously into a chair, the weight of his years heavy in a way he seldom felt.  
  
John grunted in acknowledgment and glanced at Dean. “You look like crap.”  
  
“All part of my clever disguise so I can fit in around here with the good ol’ boys,” Dean grumbled. “You get your shit together?”  
  
John’s expression darkened but he didn’t rise to the bait. He tossed a folded map onto the table and took his own seat while Dean spread out the map of North America. Around twelve circles had been drawn from Northern Mexico through Canada, each one an area of thirty miles or so.  
  
Dean groaned. “This is the best you can do?”  
  
“It’s better than anyone else can do,” John said levelly.  
  
Dean said nothing, studying the map closely. He barely glanced up when John left the room and ignored Bobby when he leaned in to give it his own look-over. Dean was still intently focused when John came back in, showered and dressed in clean clothes.  
  
“Well?”  
  
Dean sat back with a shrug. “It is what it is; we’re racing the clock now. These aren’t exactly precise locations you’ve marked.”  
  
John nodded. “It’s not a precise art. Some of these may be wrong, I might have missed others. I usually spend a _week_ just finding one hot spot. I can keep looking--”  
  
Dean cut him off with a sharp shake of his head. “There’s no time. This is already going to stretch what resources I have, and that’s assuming you can handle the three or four closest to this place. If they’re wrong, they’re wrong-- and I’d really like to think the demons aren’t up to so much crap that _all_ of these are centers of activity. If we check all of these, and don’t find squat, then you can go back to your drawing board.”  
  
Bobby tugged the map around so he could see it better. “We can hit these three,” he pointed at the red circles nearest to his property, “and maybe this one up here, depending on how long it takes to poke around. You and your _contacts_ can cover the rest?”  
  
“You just worry about your end of things; I’ve got mine under control.” Dean stood back up and reached for the map. “I can keep this?”  
  
John waved a hand. “It’s all yours.”  
  
“Fantastic. You’ve got my number, call if you find anything.”  
  
Bobby waited until the door had closed behind the vampire and they could hear the rumble of the Impala pulling away before he spoke. “Do you trust him?”  
  
“I’m a bad parent, Singer. Not a total idiot.”  
  
“You did the best you could.”  
  
John’s expression darkened. “That’s pretty cold comfort when my only child has taken up with a vampire and been abducted by demons.”  
  
The long silence between them was heavy with a question John had seen weighing in his old friend’s eyes for days. It asked for a decision John couldn’t bring himself to face yet.  
  
He looked away rather than answer.

  
****

**Chapter Five**

“Well?” Sam croaked, squinting against the glare of the overhead light and struggling to sit up.  
  
Ruby shrugged from her position against the wall. “Convulsions, a spectacularly high fever, and everyone’s favorite cake topping-- your heart stopped.”  
  
“My heart _what_?”  
  
“Stopped,” she repeated with a maddening kind of nonchalance. “But only for a second or two. More like it skipped a couple of beats. It was very convincing.” Ruby paused. “So. Not eating a lot of Italian these days?”  
  
Sam slumped back into the lumpy softness of the bed with a sigh. “Just don’t order me a pizza. And, uh--”  
  
“Don’t say it,” Ruby cut him off before he could launch into any expression of awkward gratitude. “I had my own reasons.”  
  
Sam let the silence fall again for a few minutes before asking in a low voice, figuring that if there were eavesdroppers Ruby would tell him somehow. “How did you know?”  
  
Her expression was unreadable. “Not all demons are the same, Sam. Some of them value other things than brute force and sadism. Observation skills, for example.”  
  
“That’s all you’re going to say?”  
  
“I think so.” Ruby glanced towards the open doorway. “Besides, your favorite people are here.” She stood up from her slouch just as the yellow-eyed demon sauntered in.  
  
Sam sat back up and swung his legs over the side, glaring from beneath his messy hair. “Still think I’m lying?”  
  
“Let’s just say I’m reviewing my options.”  
  
“I won’t do you any good dead,” Sam reminded him. “My heart stopped this time; who knows what will happen next time?”  
  
“Someone’s been chatty.” The yellow-eyed demon shot a glance at Ruby, who shrugged defensively. “Like I said,” he refocused his attention on Sam, “I’m considering options. I don’t think we will be repeating this experiment for at least a few days, though, so you go ahead and rest up. You’ll need your strength for what I have planned.”

~~~~~~~

_The comforter was scratchy under his knees and palms, but the feeling barely even registered against the hands roaming over his chest and the cock thrusting deep into him with a rhythm designed to drive him crazy. He tensed and tried to move, to encourage a faster pace or a different angle, but one of the hands slid down to grip his hip firmly, holding him in place. Sam hung his head and tried to be patient, but the hands wouldn’t touch him where he wanted it the most, and his neglected cock was hard and aching against his belly. Sweat stung in the scratches across his back from earlier play, and he just wanted to come... He tried shifting again, to just change the angle a little... Dean growled and caught a handful of his hair, using it to wrench his head aside exposing his neck in a graceful curve. A sharp sting and then Sam's world dissolved into waves of the most intense pleasure..._  
  
Sam’s eyes flew open as the sun sank under the horizon. He had forgotten what dreaming was like in the long months since he had lost the sun, but now the space between when he closed his eyes and woke again seemed filled with vivid sensation and color. Maybe a little too much sensation. His skin was slick with sweat and the sticky mess inside his sweatpants guaranteed it would be another day of laundering his clothes in the shower. Drying them took forever, but he didn’t have anything else pressing to do.  
  
It had been several days since Meg had bothered him or Yellow-Eyes had even shown up. Ruby was there on and off, a surprisingly agreeable presence. Sam hoped she wasn’t watching him sleep, just in case his body reflected his dreams. She continued to be frustratingly close-mouthed about what was going on regarding his situation, but seemed uninterested in tormenting him and was a welcome relief from endless hours with nothing to do and the strange thought that he was getting sick. Sam woke up each morning with a sore throat and the tight feeling in his chest that he was _losing_ something, something faint and subtle that slid further from his grasp with every beat of his heart. It was weird and disturbing and Ruby helped him focus on other things. He had to keep reminding himself she was a demon, and no ally of his, no matter how sympathetic she seemed at times. He was also hungry, and stores in the kitchen were running both low and unappealing. It didn’t seem to matter how much he ate, there was always a hollow feeling in his belly like he needed more, but Sam doubted he was going to be allowed to do grocery shopping anytime soon.  
  
Sam fell asleep each dawn with his fingers crossed hoping that this would be the night that Dean would show up and help him escape. There was the possibility that he truly couldn’t survive without Dean, and he wondered what it would feel like when the dying started. If it would be like the explosion at the cabin, the ripping pain and then the slow bleed, or if one evening he just wouldn’t wake up. Dean had been vague on it, and Sam hadn’t pressed. It wasn’t supposed to have ever been an issue, they weren’t supposed to be separated. Sam promised himself that if he lived through this experience there were a lot of questions he was going to get actual answers to, no matter how fiercely Dean squirmed.  
  
On the fifth evening, Sam’s eyes flew open with the red strains of sunset still streaking up through the trees. His face was wet with tears and the sense of loss made him want to scream. There was an emptiness inside, like something essential he hadn’t even been aware of had been scoured away. But like a bad dream the feeling was already fading by the time he sat up, drifting away like smoke, shredding even as he tried to understand what was happening. Ruby could barely get his attention that night. She had brought him a deli sandwich and some chips but Sam barely picked at them though his stomach growled. It just wasn’t appealing but he forced himself to eat some anyways. After a few hours she finally shoved the checkerboard she had been trying to entice him with back in the box and stood up to leave.  
  
“What are they waiting for?” he asked quietly. “What does he want with me?”  
  
Ruby paused at the question with one hand on the doorframe. She looked back at where Sam sat against the wall by the window; it was the first time he had looked directly at her the entire evening.  
  
“Does it matter?” she finally asked.  
  
Sam turned back to watching the cloudy sky. It really didn’t. He wasn’t going anywhere anyway.  
  
And he didn’t have to wait long for at least one of his answers. When he woke up next it wasn’t to a stained horizon and the shadows of night, but rather to uncomfortable warmth and the deep panicky feeling that something was terribly wrong. And bright. He squeezed his eyelids shut tighter and tried to twist away under sheets that felt as heavy as lead to his sluggish limbs. Hands on his shoulders held him in place and finally Sam reluctantly forced his eyelids up to see what the hell was going on. It was hard to think past the discomfort and exhaustion that was trying to drag him back down. But even his struggling consciousness couldn’t miss the afternoon sunlight striping across the blankets through the cheap, flimsy blinds, and the yellow-eyed demon’s pleased face smiling down on him.

~~~~~~~

Dean staggered and hit the ground hard on both knees. It took a moment before he registered the dirt under his palms through the haze of chaos in his mind. He had felt the faint and wavering link between him and Sam weakening for days, and had known what would inevitably happen if the search took as long as he feared it would. But he had still been unprepared for the shock of the break when it finally happened, bringing echoes of a pain so vast he had not thought it survivable at the time, a memory that still seared, centuries after the loss. The bond he had shared with Sam had never been very strong, not in the way he remembered from... before. No tangle of emotions, or sharing of thought. None of the instinctive push and pull between fledgling and master that ruled his own memories of transformation, and the single time he had tried this in the distant past. Dean had spoken to others of his kind, frustrating conversations where he tried to figure out if his bond with Sam was normal, damaged, or just _weird_. The novelty of trying to transform a human who was already claimed by another type of supernatural being had attracted a great deal of discussion, but ultimately the only answers had been speculation.  
  
And accusation. Low whispers that he deserved to fail again, to lose this one as he had lost the first. For his guilt. And his crimes. _Thief. Betrayer_. But if time and age had taught Dean anything, it was that striking back would bring him nothing but more shame, though it stung him that anyone would wish harm on Sam for things that happened centuries before his birth.  
  
Or believe that he should be left as a plaything for demons simply because they had him _first_. As if Dean would recognize a demon’s claim.  
  
It didn’t matter who had Sam first. It mattered who had him _last_. And that was a game Dean was determined to win. The breaking bond hadn’t been death. Having felt it before, Dean was certain of that much. And there was only one thing he could think of short of death that the demons could be doing to cause that stretching and snap.  
  
He only hoped that the blood they were forcing on Sam now would keep him alive until Dean could reclaim him.

  
****

**Chapter Six**

When Sam opened his eyes again it was to the familiar darkness of night. He sat bolt upright and looked around wildly, overwhelmed by a memory of the impossible, burning light of day.  
  
“So I guess it’s working then.”  
  
Sam jerked around, startled. Ruby was slouched against the wall where Sam usually sat. He had missed her in his momentary panic. She stood up and walked over to flip on the light.  
  
“What’s _working_? What are you people doing to me?!” Sam demanded, wincing from the sudden illumination.  
  
“I wasn’t allowed to tell you before. I’m kind of on a short leash, something about proving myself and all that jazz. Loyalty’s not real big in Hell.” She gave Sam a sidelong smile he didn’t return. “I guess it doesn’t matter now, though. He... knew. Somehow. About the garlic, or maybe that was just a guess. But he knew you were doing something. Or he could have just decided that you were as useful dead as undead and he might as well take the chance.”  
  
Sam glared. Ruby’s expression grew exasperated, but she continued and got to the point.  
  
“They’ve been feeding you blood,” she said bluntly. “Lots of it, with a tube down your throat while you’re asleep in the daytime.”  
  
Sam blinked at her, not understanding for a moment. And then comprehension rushed in and he flopped back with a groan. No wonder his throat hurt every night. He couldn’t come up with language bad enough to even start to encompass his situation and just lay mute across the unmade bed, staring at the ceiling.  
  
Wishing Dean was there.  
  
All of that time running and hiding and waiting for the vampire blood and the transformation it would bring to break him free from the demon’s grasp-- all for nothing. He’d been in denial before, hoping that if it was only once or twice maybe it wasn’t that bad. Maybe Dean would find him and they could do _something_ to undo the damage. But he couldn’t ignore the magnitude of the problem anymore, not if what was being done to him was so powerful he was waking up in _daylight_ again. He could only hope that the demonic infusion was just pushing him back towards humanity as it undid the transformation’s progress, and not just twisting him into some new horror entirely.  
  
After a moment, the mattress sank beside him and he looked over numbly to meet Ruby’s blue eyes. She reached out and brushed her hand over his arm. “Maybe it’s not so bad.”  
  
Sam blinked, baffled. “How can this _possibly_ be ‘not so bad’?”  
  
She glanced warily at the open door and lowered her voice. In the distance, the occasional creak of a floorboard told of other presences in the house. “What do you want, Sam?” His expression was incredulous as he opened his mouth to answer her, but she cut him off with an impatient shake of her head. “Not to get out of here, but what you _really_ want?”  
  
That wasn’t a hard question either and Sam started to reply with the answer that he had carried in his heart for most of his life: revenge. For his mother’s murder and the mad obsession it had brought his father. For Jessica, and for the utter ruin of anything good in his life.  
  
He was surprised when that wasn’t what slipped out.  
  
“Dean.” Dean, who was more than capable of watching his own ass, and who brought with him the promise of a life untroubled by the plagues of Sam’s past. He wasn’t bad at watching Sam’s ass either, and there were other... perks.  
  
“Really?” Ruby’s eyes widened and she looked surprised, and not entirely happy about it. “Because after all the crap demons like the one running this show have put you through, I would have thought you might be interested in a little payback.”  
  
Sam propped himself up his elbows. “And how am I supposed to get that? I can’t even get myself out of this house!”  
  
“He never told you what he wanted you for...”  
  
“No,” Sam agreed in disgust. “Just that I was special.”  
  
“You are,” she said.  
  
“How?” Sam demanded.  
  
“They’re trying to do something. This one and other powerful demons like him. They have--” She broke off and gave another hard look at the doorway. After a moment one of his jailers drifted by the doorway and glanced inside, Ruby scowled and the other demon kept on walking. She lay back beside him on the mattress and continued, voice low enough that Sam had to lean in to make out her words. So close that he could feel the warm sweetness of her breath against his face and feel the length of her body against his own. “They have a plan. They’re working to do something very important to them, but they have to have exactly the right pieces in place or the whole thing falls apart. It could be centuries before the time is right to try again.”  
  
“What are they trying _to do_?” Sam asked, matching her cautious tones.  
  
Ruby shrugged with infuriating nonchalance. “Destroy this, dominate that, free Lucifer from his cage-- does it matter?”  
  
“Free Lucif-- That’s just an example, right?”  
  
She said nothing.  
  
“ _Right?_ ” Sam repeated with more emphasis, not even sure he believed in the devil, but sure that if he existed, his freedom would be a _very bad_ thing.  
  
Ruby shrugged again dismissively. “Whatever they’re up to won’t be healthy for people.”  
  
“What does this grand plan they are working have to do with _me_?” Sam wanted to reach out and shake her to make her hurry, afraid something would interrupt the only answers he might get before she finally spilled them out.  
  
“They need you. I... don’t know what for. But I know about twenty-five or so years ago they marked a couple hundred kids all over the planet. _Special_ kids; kids with powers and abilities. And one of them is going to be the linchpin to all the nasty plans they’re cooking up.”  
  
“Power?” Sam repeated, baffled. “What kind of power? I don’t have anything like that.”  
  
“Really?” Ruby watched him closely. “Because there’s a kind of _aura_ around those humans who are part of this grand plan that demons can feel. It’s strong around you, as strong as I’ve ever felt it. You’re sure you’ve never experienced _anything_ that might be an... ability?”  
  
“Like what?” Sam demanded. “Being exceptionally good at getting screwed over?”  
  
Ruby frowned and Sam had the distinct impression that whatever she was after, he wasn’t supplying. “Visions, maybe. Prophetic dreams; intuition? Psychic stuff?”  
  
Sam thought about it, then shook his head. “No, nothing like that.”  
  
“You really feel like you should.”  
  
“Well I can’t help what I _feel_ like to you; I’m telling you I have no idea what you’re talking about!” His stomach chose that moment to growl and he shifted against the dull, persistent ache of hunger.  
  
There was a heavy silence in the room. Ruby looked away and muttered something about ‘fucking vampires’ that Sam ignored. His mind was chasing something else, something nagging, jarred loose by her words. Something awful, and blood soaked, and-- “What about telekinesis?”  
  
Her head whipped back around. “What _about_ telekinesis?”  
  
“Is that one of your so-called special powers?”  
  
“It can be. Usually it shows up secondary to other things. More impressive things,” she added pointedly.  
  
Sam nodded, lost in memories.  
  
“Why?” she pressed.  
  
He could see it as clearly as the moment it had happened. Gordon, the cabin, the blood running down his face. The morning song of the woodland birds and the shotgun leveled at his chest.  
  
Sam’s life had been spared by the sudden, unexpected relocation of a couch carved of solid oak. He hadn’t seen the furniture move; he’d been busy trying to get off the floor at the time. But Gordon, dying, had sworn it was something Sam had done. He had all but forgotten in the chaos, pain and wonder of the next few days; there had been so many other things to dwell on and absorb.  
  
Gordon’s death wasn’t something he liked to think about.  
  
“Why, Sam?” Ruby asked again intently. It was Sam’s turn to shrug, unwilling to discuss it.  
  
“Why do you think having my life hijacked by demons is maybe ‘not so bad’?” he returned to his original question.  
  
Ruby studied his face for a minute before nodding slowly, like she was confirming something to herself. “If you can do one thing, then you can learn to do other things. Powerful things, Sam. You feel--”  
  
“Enough with what I _feel_ like!” he snapped.  
  
She ignored him, “--like you can carve your own path in this. They’ve given you this power, but what you do with it is up to you. Including revenge. Including making them pay for everything and everyone they’ve hurt in your life!”  
  
“How?” Sam demanded.  
  
“Embrace it,” she breathed. “It’s a _weapon_ , Sam. You can rip them out of their bodies; you can rip them out of this plane. And maybe, if you’re as strong as I think you are, you can learn to destroy them completely. _Destroy_ them, Sam. Do you know what that _means_? ” Her eyes were alight with passion and intensity. “I can show you, I can help you strike back at them and set yourself free...”  
  
Sam stared, the idea almost unbelievable. “Why would you help me learn to do that?”  
  
Ruby sat up, expression suddenly shuttered. “You aren’t the only one they’ve screwed over. Demons aren’t free agents, Sam. We’re slaves of Hell, at the whim of more powerful masters.”  
  
Sam sat up beside her and scooted to lean against the headboard. “What would I have to do?”  
  
“Stop fighting this. You need our blood to unlock your gifts. You need enough of it to undo what that vampire has done to you before you can even _start_ to learn. If you stop fighting and... cooperate, once _he’s_ satisfied you’re mostly restored, I can talk him into leaving you to me. I can show you how to get everything you want, how to make them _pay_.” She scooted to sit up next to him again. Her hand rested on his thigh and he felt his eyes drifting down her body despite himself and swallowed. She was a beautiful woman.  
  
A beautiful demon. The woman was probably dead, if she was lucky, and he was admiring a corpse. If the demon fled, the body would be so much decaying meat. Sam had to swallow again for a different reason.  
  
He shook her hand off and slid off the bed. Sam knew he wasn’t imagining the flash of irritation that crossed her face.  
  
“In other words, if I give up my-- how did Meg say it?-- my ‘evil vampire ways,’ and let the demons who wrecked my life do whatever they damn well please with me, then I might be able to take some wild swing back at them. Maybe. Meanwhile, I lose the only relationship I value, justify anything anyone has ever said about me, and I’ll still be drinking blood and on the run-- while possibly helping _demons_ accomplish some kind of world-ending scheme!”  
  
She leaned towards him and lowered her voice. “I helped you,” she said. “I risked _everything_ to help you! It didn’t quite turn out the way you wanted, but do you have any idea what he would have done with me if he found out what I did? Because I have to tell you, Sam, _death_ doesn’t even get a spot on the scale of horrors he could inflict on me for that.”  
  
“Yeah.” Sam crossed his own arms and stepped back. “You helped me, and then you _left me to hang_. You could have _told_ me what they were doing, you could have--”  
  
“For what purpose?” she demanded. “So you could kill yourself trying to escape? You couldn’t have stopped them, and dead you can’t do anything.”  
  
“It would have been my choice,” Sam hissed.  
  
“It still is!”  
  
It was tempting, it was so tempting. The idea that he could do _something_ to lash back at his tormentors. They had killed so many people, hurt so many people... And all he had to do was exactly what they wanted. Without fuss or complaint. And Ruby... She had given him the pills when he couldn’t find them in the kitchen, but she also had to be the one who took them in the first place. She hadn’t warned him about the blood, or the demon, or given him even a hint of the grander scheme. Now she spoke of vengeance and power, of getting free of the spiraling trap that had ensnared him almost since birth, of growing strong-- by giving in.  
  
She was a demon.  
  
And distinctly _not_ Dean.  
  
... More flies with honey than vinegar...  
  
Traps within traps.  
  
“No.” Sam shook his head. “I won’t do it. I won’t do anything to cooperate. If I’m this special person you say they want, then by ruining myself for this _plan_ , I’m doing more to screw with them than I could even if I _did_ learn how to kill them. I won’t give up Dean, and I won’t be your student.”  
  
His lips curved into a humorless smile at the idea of what his father would say if he _did_ agree to cooperate with a demon. The vampire was bad enough, but a _demon_ …  
  
Sam shook his head. “Thanks, if you really are trying to help me, but no thanks.”  
  
Ruby looked as though she wanted to say something, changed her mind, started to speak again, then her face grew completely still, looking in that instant like the flesh mask it was. “You’ll be sorry, Sam. This is the only chance you have.” Her voice grew almost cold. “The only _choice_ you have.”  
  
“That sounds like a threat.” He crossed his arms and stepped back, clearly indicating she was welcome to leave. “Someone is looking for me, Ruby. And when he finds me, I won’t be the sorry one.”  
  
She left the room, and didn’t come back.

~~~~~~~

The next day almost set a new record low for Sam as far as bad times went. First of all, because it was _day_ , and the oppressive and skin-crawling weight of the sun overhead just felt so incredibly wrong and threatening. And secondly, because he woke up choking and gagging on thick plastic that seemed to fill his mouth and throat-- all under the looming, satisfied gaze of the yellow-eyed demon.  
  
“I’m proud of you, Sammy,” the demon remarked while Sam struggled on the bed, anchored in place by blankets that felt heavy as lead over limbs that moved sluggishly at best, and by the firm, unyielding pressure of hands on his head and shoulders. “After spending that much time in close quarters with that vampire--Dean? I wouldn’t have thought you’d have that much of a gag reflex left.”  
  
Sam barely registered the comment; between the tube in his throat and the instinctive panic, he couldn’t keep track of the words being spoken over him and around the room. He couldn’t seem to wake up all the way, and felt like he was being strangled while violent currents tried to drag him under deep, relentless waters. Sam would have been more than happy to succumb, but couldn’t stop fighting long enough to fall into it.  
  
Eventually, he couldn’t muster the strength to continue even the pathetic struggle and was forced to lie still in semi-conscious misery. When they eventually pulled the tube free from his throat, its smooth length felt coated with sandpaper and crumbled glass. The pain was enough to rouse Sam back to some semblance of lucidity from the drifting state he had slid into. With the hands removed and the choking sensation gone, Sam managed to roll onto his side and curl into a protective ball, but could do nothing about the slow, hot tears of frustration and lingering pain that slid down to soak into the pillowcase.  
  
The yellow-eyed demon gave Sam’s shoulder a satisfied pat. “You were awake earlier and for twice as long this time. Stick with us, kid, and you’ll beat this vampire thing yet!”  
  
“Go to Hell,” Sam managed to slur roughly. The demon’s chuckle was the last thing he heard before the water finally closed over his head. 

  


  
****

**Chapter Seven**

“It’s been a week and a half.”  
  
“He’s still alive,” Dean said flatly from where he was sitting shotgun in John’s truck, idly tracking the flights of owls through the evening darkness.  
  
“How do you know?” John asked tightly, not taking his eyes off the road.  
  
“I just do.”  
  
“That isn’t good enough. You told me he wouldn’t survive a _week_ without you. Were you lying or did something change?”  
  
The air in the car was tense, but not much more so than it had been for the past three days. After running down all of the possibilities John had found in his initial search and coming up with nothing, Dean had demanded he work his mumbo jumbo crap and come up with some more. John did, but then refused to tell Dean where they were unless they did the physical search together. Bobby had elected to stay back at the junkyard and try the networking angle to get leads, but Dean was fairly certain he just disapproved of the company-- which suited Dean just fine.  
  
“Nothing’s changed except that traveling with you is making this process take ten times as long as it should!”  
  
“Were you planning to fly? Because otherwise this couldn’t _be_ faster,” John snapped.  
  
Dean shot him an annoyed look. “I sure as hell wouldn’t be wasting my time obeying the speed limits.” He motioned towards one of the signs as it flashed by on the right.  
  
“You think getting pulled over for speeding would make this process faster?” John demanded.  
  
“You’re just pissed because you know I’m right and it’s your paranoid delusional insecurity that’s making you drag this whole thing out!”  
  
John’s nostrils flared in annoyance but he kept his voice steady. “I don’t think it’s _paranoid_ of me to worry that the _vampire_ with an unhealthy interest in my _son_ might not be the most trustworthy person to have stumble over him alone! I want to see Sam, not have you drag him back off into some shadowy hellhole.”  
  
“And it only took you a week of working without me to decide that was a possibility?! I covered five times the ground you did!”  
  
“Feel free to get out of the truck anytime,” John growled. “I can do this on my own, and you can kiss my ass.”  
  
“You can find him. Maybe,” Dean snorted. “But get him back? You have no idea what you’ll be up against. They wanted him _bad_ and they aren’t going to have him tied up in some basement with only a guard or two. That wouldn’t hold Sam. You’re going to be outclassed and you know it, or you wouldn’t be putting up with me in the first place.”  
  
“I’m putting up with you because...” John blew out a deep breath of exasperation. The vampire drove him crazier than his kid ever had. “Just shut up for awhile.”  
  
“Well,” Dean said in a somewhat mollified tone after a long moment of silence. “At least I’m a _person_ now.”  
  
John rolled his eyes and edged the pedal down a little further.  
  
Another hour passed in silence. They had entered the margin of another one of John’s potential zones of demonic activity more than twenty minutes ago and would hit Mount Ida in the next little bit. John’s method of deciding whether Sam could be present or not had to do with determining if there was any actual signs of a demonic presence, and that had a lot to do with canvassing and interviewing people. Local hunters, cops, anyone who could give him the type of information he was seeking. He didn’t have to bother with that anymore though, because Dean’s way was more direct, and more certain. John didn’t understand it, but he believed that Dean genuinely wanted to locate Sam and trusted the vampire’s determinations. What he wanted _after_ that was a discussion for once they actually had Sam in hand.  
  
The lights of the city were a smudge on the approaching horizon when Dean sat straight up and looked hard through the tinted glass of his window.  
  
“Something wrong?” John asked, noting the sudden attention.  
  
“Pull over.”  
  
“We’re five hundred feet from an exit.”  
  
Dean didn’t bother arguing, just pulled the handle and shoved the door open against the rush of air at seventy miles an hour. John swore and swerved onto the shoulder. By the time he had brought the truck to a full stop, Dean had slid out and disappeared into the darkness. John caught up with him a minute later a few yards out into the waist-high grass. The only light was from the half-moon overhead, but it was enough to make out the perfect stillness of the vampire, eyes closed and chin lifted. John forced himself to wait, if not with patience, at least with the semblance of it. After a few minutes Dean relaxed and opened his eyes.  
  
“Well?” John demanded. Dean’s answering smile was cold and satisfied, something inhuman about the lines of it making the hair lift on John’s neck.  
  
“This is it. He’s here.”

~~~~~~~

John Winchester was pacing the threadbare carpet of a cheap motel room on the outskirts of Mount Ida hours later when a brisk knock sounded on the door. He had the bolt undone almost before the last echo faded.  
  
“Someone might almost think you were waiting for something,” Dean said as he pushed past to get inside. Dirt was smudged along one cheek and a dry bit of leaf was caught in his short hair. He brushed it out absently.  
  
John ignored him. “Did you find Sam?”  
  
He had been disinvited from the scouting expedition by the simple expedient of Dean ordering him to go get a room, and then vanishing into the forest before the hunter could object. The vampire had moved like a shadow into the darkness and even if he had tried, John had known he had no chance to keep up. It hadn’t thrilled him, but Dean had been right about John’s odds of being able to rescue Sam alone, and if nothing else, the vampire was motivated.  
  
“They’re squatting at some old farmstead out off a dirt road. It’s a good ten miles from here, and it’s gonna be a bitch to get near it with a vehicle unnoticed. I just think it might be _more_ of a bitch to carry him out during his daylight siesta while running from monsters over rough terrain without the truck.”  
  
“You’re certain he’s there?” John asked intently.  
  
The vampire gave him a tired look. It occurred to John for the first time that he hadn’t seen Dean take any sort of rest since they had started traveling together. He wondered if the vampire had rested since Sam had gone missing at all. Something to note in case it later proved... useful.  
  
“I’m certain.” Dean rubbed his eyes. “Sam, at least half a dozen demons, a couple of Hellhounds, a leprechaun and my great aunt Ethyl.”  
  
John’s expression darkened. “Hellhounds?”  
  
“Yeah,” Dean sighed. “Fucking dogs. Big, vicious, and they don’t give much of a crap about bullets or blades. They’re also a little hard to see. But I was kidding about the leprechaun. And the aunt.”  
  
John twitched aside the curtain, checking the parking lot for activity. “I know what Hellhounds are. How do you know the farmhouse is abandoned?”  
  
Dean snorted. “Abandoned is probably not the right word, maybe ‘forcibly vacated.’ I practically tripped over what remained of the previous tenants. That was as close as I could get, though. Demons can be almost as sensitive as I am in the dark; the very _last_ thing we want to do is clue them in that we’re around.”  
  
“Won’t the hounds pick up your scent?”  
  
Dean smiled tightly. “I’m not like you humans. I’m part of my native lands and they can’t sniff me out any more than they could locate me with a spell. They’ll think my scent track is _weird_ , but not a person, and they aren’t exactly rocket scientists, you know? We’re good.”  
  
John turned from the window and watched as Dean shrugged out of the battered leather jacket he had been wearing. “You’ve seen the layout. Anything suggest a plan?”  
  
“Not really.” Dean sank into a recliner that looked like it had been new about the time Sam was born. “Not yet. Let’s watch it for a day or two, see what kind of patterns we can find to exploit.”  
  
John’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you were saying he was going to die. That we were racing the clock.”  
  
Dean drummed the fingers of one hand on the cheap laminate of the tabletop. “He’s still alive. If we rush in now, we have almost no chance. If we do it the smart way... we have a slim chance. We need to plan this out, and we need to do it in the daytime.”  
  
“Why?” John asked. “Like you mentioned before, Sam’s not a lightweight. It creates a serious complication if we have to carry him out.”  
  
“The demons are weaker then,” Dean shrugged. “Most supernatural things are. Sunlight is purifying and pretty much everything that goes bump in the night is affected to some degree.”  
  
“I’ve fought my share of demons, and done plenty of bleeding at their hands with the sun shining overhead,” John frowned.  
  
“I said they’re weaker, not _neutered_ ,” Dean snorted. “We’re going for any advantage we can get here. Even a second of slowed reaction time might make all of the difference in being successful, or being left to rot in a field.”  
  
“What about you?”  
  
Dean looked up. “What _about_ me?”  
  
John ground his teeth but refused to rise to the bait. “Aren’t you handicapped too?”  
  
“I’ve trained to compensate, they’re used to outclassing everything and don’t worry about it. Plus, since I _am_ a vampire, and they certainly know it, they aren’t going to be expecting a daylight assault. Another mark in our favor.”  
  
John peered out at the parking lot again. “I’ll call Bobby. Have him come meet us here. We can use the extra hands.”  
  
“By all means,” Dean agreed. “The more cannon fodder, the better.”  
  
John’s narrowed gaze didn’t faze the vampire. “Anyone _you_ want to invite to this dance to help out?”  
  
“Nope. I could probably get some of my peers to help me rescue my fledgling, but only if you were willing to sit on the sidelines so everyone could pretend you weren’t involved. I told you what the penalty would be for knowing too much. Any chance you’d be willing to just sit here in this nice room and wait for a report?”  
  
“And let you take Sam and vanish? No.”  
  
Dean’s smile was humorless. “Then I think we’ll just avoid the obligatory slaughter and keep this all in the family.”  
  
“You aren’t _in_ my family.” John’s voice was glacial.  
  
Dean bit back the automatic retort of just how _often_ he’d been in John’s family as unproductive. Instead, he tilted his head back to stare at the water stains on the yellowing popcorn ceiling.  
  
Running water was the only sound that filled the room while John ducked into the bathroom to prepare himself for bed. He was somewhat surprised to see that Dean hadn’t moved from the vinyl chair when he finished washing up and walked back out. He used the excuse to study the vampire, wondering what it was his son saw in the creature. John wasn’t much of a judge of other guys from a sexual perspective, but he supposed Dean was good enough looking. But not good enough looking to overcome the _male_ aspect-- without even considering the _vampire_ part. Sam had never shown any sort of inclination towards boys growing up, and his engagement seemed to negate the idea that he’d had some kind of identity crisis in college. The part of John that was a father preferred to believe that he had just missed something in his son’s nature, rather than acknowledge his stronger suspicion that his absence had created a crisis for Sam where Dean was the best option. The part of him that was a hunter couldn’t get past the _vampire_ part enough to care about the rest. The demonic taint had been involuntary; the vampire had been a _choice_. The betrayal rankled.  
  
“You need to get out of my room now,” John said gruffly. “You aren’t staying here tonight, and I need to sleep.”  
  
Dean peeled himself out of the chair and stretched. “Do I ever stay with you? People might talk.”  
  
But the baiting smile was off, and there were lines around his eyes that made him seem old for the first time since John had met him.  
  
“Where are you going?” the hunter asked suddenly.  
  
“You’ve never asked me that before,” Dean responded, picking up his jacket.  
  
“I’ve never cared before.”  
  
“And you care now?” Something was swimming in the vampire’s green eyes, something dark and... inhuman. John felt his hackles raise, his instincts screaming that the man in front of him was something truly dangerous. They had been traveling together for days and he hadn’t felt that warning around Dean since the day Sam was taken. His hand itched now to find a weapon. They stood like that, gazes locked for a full minute, before Dean abruptly looked away, rubbing his neck with one hand with an almost sheepish expression. The tension was gone like it had never existed.  
  
“Let’s just say I’m curious,” John said cautiously.  
  
Dean shrugged. “Probably going to spend the rest of the night lying in the woods outside the house. I imagine I’ll spend most of tomorrow there too.”  
  
“That’s it?” John pressed, looking for whatever Dean was hiding now; for whatever was just under the surface, weakening the human mask that hid the true predator.  
  
Dean met his eyes again directly. “Why are you so interested?”  
  
“Why don’t you want to tell me?”  
  
“Because it’s late, we’ve got more than enough on our plates, and there’s only one Winchester I’m willing to put up with moralistic hissy-fits from,” Dean snapped. “Guess who you aren’t?”  
  
 _Vampire._  
  
“You’re going hunting.” It wasn’t a question.  
  
“Yeah, well, it’s been a while. I’m not going to get into a slug-fest with the demons with no gas in the tank. Happy now?”  
  
“That you’re planning to go out and casually kill someone on your way out of town?”  
  
Dean rolled his eyes. “I didn’t realize drama queen was genetic. Learn something every day. I _told_ you,” he continued before John could speak, “we don’t kill when we hunt. I’m gonna go let some half-drunk co-ed feel me up in the back of a bar, do a little nibbling, then leave them passed out and happy in a booth. A couple of mouthfuls of blood never killed anyone. Chill out.”  
  
John watched as Dean slid into his jacket and stepped towards the door, then swore. He couldn’t, _couldn’t_ bring a vampire to a town and let it go hunt. It violated everything he believed in, had fought and bled more than twenty years for. It was only for _Sam_ that he could even bring himself to work with a creature like Dean. To let it hunt... “Can you use medical supplies? If I were able to get my hands on some?”  
  
Dean banged his head gently against the motel room door, and then turned to face John again. “If I could, I certainly wouldn’t need your clumsy help to score them. But you aren’t stupid, so you knew the answer before you asked the damn question. I get you’re having some kind of hunter moral crisis, I really do. Which is why I didn’t mention this little side trip when you asked what I was doing the first time. I’ve let it go too long already, because I’m stupid, and I didn’t want to have this discussion. You pressed the issue, now suck it up and live with it. Or do you think some total stranger waking up a little more tired than they expected tomorrow is worth risking _your son’s life_ over?”  
  
John’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t argue the point. Dean rolled his eyes and flipped the lock; he had the door half open when John spoke again, voice lower and strained. “What about me?”  
  
Dean froze, then slowly closed the door again and turned around, sure he was hearing things wrong. “What _about_ you?”  
  
John’s arms were crossed tightly across his chest, so tense that Dean’s sharp vision could easily pick out blood vessels lying just under taut skin. “You said it’s just a few mouthfuls, not enough to hurt anyone. I’ve got veins, and you don’t even have to find a bar.”  
  
“You aren’t serious,” Dean said flatly. But he could see from John’s expression of uneasy resolve that he was. He was intimately familiar with that particular Winchester look, and was surprised to see how similar it was on two men with such different features. The idea was interesting, but complicated. Especially when rescuing Sam might still hinge on cooperation.  
  
Dean didn’t particularly give a flip if John helped with the actual rescue or not; it would be a hell of a lot easier if he didn’t, in fact, because then Dean could call in help from people he actually trusted at his back. And Sam’s. But if the demons managed to move Sam first, finding him could be next to impossible without John’s assistance. “John... this is a bad idea.”  
  
“I brought you to this town, knowing what you are. I’m responsible for what you do while you’re here.”  
  
“You have no fucking clue what I am.” Dean rolled his eyes. “Chasing Sam brought me to this town, so whatever I do is the responsibility of the demons that took him. And I would have found it eventually on my own, so your conscience is clear on that end too. It just would have taken me a hell of a lot longer. And for the last freaking time, I’m _not going to hurt anyone_.”  
  
“Are you going to ask them first?” John snapped. A thought occurred to him. “Did you ask _Sam_?”  
  
“See? That’s _exactly_ why this is a bad idea! You’ve got everything all twisted up with guilt, and demons, and your obsessions, and hunting, and Sam, and this has _nothing to do with any of that_. Everyone has to eat sometime. It’s just like if you ran out to get a hamburger. Save your crazy moral quandaries for other things.”  
  
“If it’s so quick and harmless, then there’s no problem with you considering me fast food,” John growled back, sitting on the end of the bed.  
  
Dean could tell that he was deadly earnest. And like he had told John, it wasn’t worth fighting about. There were much bigger things coming up they could fight over. This didn’t need to be one of them. And he really was tired, and hungry, and not in the mood to hunt. Besides, the idea was... interesting. It appealed to the part of his brain that still found fires fascinating and enjoyed bad jokes and cheap pranks. Basically, the part that tended to land him in trouble-- and feeding on Sam’s father was definitely asking for it, from Sam if no one else.  
  
But his fledgling was a perfect example of how recognizing the bad decisions didn’t always lead to avoiding them.  
  
Dean gave in. He dragged one of the chairs over to the end of the bed and sat down. Where before the motel room had been filled with the fairly amiable tension that had marked all of their interactions during the search, now it seemed to hold a weight of uncomfortable intimacy.  
  
“Are you sure about this?” Dean asked, struggling to keep his attention on the man’s face and not on the blood he could almost hear _singing_ to him in its dark, rushing language. Even while Dean forced himself to meet the eyes of the man studying him, his mind was pulling up images of John’s wrists that he hadn’t even been conscious of noting. The way the bones lay under tanned skin, the subtle shading and curves of tendons and muscle, veins that wound over and through all, flush with the delicacy of life and power. The seductive architecture was almost pornographic to the vampire’s finally acknowledged hunger. He was good at suppressing it, but once recognized it demanded its due. He _had_ fed after Sam was abducted, but that went mostly to refilling what Sam himself had taken. This would serve a different purpose, and there was almost poetry in using John’s blood to fuel the bloody path he intended to carve to reach Sam’s side. The human body was full of delicious places to sink his teeth into, but the wrist was as far as Dean would let his imagination wander. It was the least... personal, and just sitting together like this in a motel room was already far more personal than he had ever wanted to be with John fucking Winchester, whatever their common goals.  
  
“I’m sure,” John gritted. He held one arm out a little awkwardly and Dean reached to turn it to a better angle. Contact was like an electric current, but Dean was careful not to appear too eager. Control was everything-- for himself, and for not spooking the meal.  
  
“You never answered my question,” John said suddenly.  
  
“What question?” Dean mumbled, mind focusing on only one thing.  
  
“Did you ask Sam?”  
  
Dean forced his brain to process. “Ask...”  
  
Oh. That.  
  
Dean himself had no regrets about the games and twisted bargains that had brought him and Sam together; Sam had been asking for it and they had eventually made peace to their mutual satisfaction. But John Winchester was unlikely to view the story in the same pragmatic light. “Ask him yourself when you see him; I don’t want to talk about me and Sam right now.”  
  
John’s lips tightened but he didn’t pull back, so Dean tightened his grip and sank his razor fangs into the thin skin of John’s wrist before the hunter could come up with other distracting topics. He used none of his abilities on John, neither the pain that he had tortured Sam with when they first met, or the pleasure he had lulled him with later. John’s blood was rich liquor, heavy with strength and with a surprising sweetness to it, with none of the faint sulphuric taint of Sam’s. Dean counted to ten slowly, then pulled back. John was staring intently at the faded print over the dresser; jaw clenched so tightly Dean wondered if he was going to break a tooth.  
  
“You need to put some pressure on the holes.”  
  
“What?” John asked, focusing on him.  
  
“The holes,” Dean explained patiently, squeezed his own firm grip over them for emphasis. “Stick your fingers here while I get a washcloth.”  
  
John examined his wrist. “Just the two teeth. Interesting.”  
  
Dean ignored the observation, not interested in discussing his species with the hunter any more now than he had been before. It only took him a second to walk over and snag a washcloth from the bathroom. He felt renewed, lighter. It was always like that, even after centuries. Even when you were feeding regularly. Surviving on animal blood wasn’t the same; it carried no kick, provided nothing but basic survival. Oh, it eased the hunger, but without the blood of humans you just ran down slowly, minute after minute sinking you deeper and deeper into a powerless cold until you didn’t even remember what warmth felt like. And then one day you tasted the true elixir again, and the sun came up, with light, and heat, and... he was humming. John was staring at him. Dean tossed him the washcloth and tried to keep the dopey smile off his face.  
  
John busied himself with getting his wrist cleaned up for a few minutes before speaking. “That was... fast.”  
  
“We don’t drink a lot of human blood. It’s intense, and doesn’t take much for what I need. Animal keeps us alive, but it’s not the same,” he explained tersely.  
  
“Do you feed from Sam like that?”  
  
Dean’s good humor evaporated like a popped bubble at the mention of Sam’s name again. He forcibly reminded himself that John had been a far better sport than he had any real reason to be, and answering a few questions wasn’t unreasonable. “No. Sam’s transitioning. He feeds from me for the strength to do that, and I get that strength to share from humans. I only feed from Sam for more... recreational, needs.”  
  
“And he knows you’re out preying on people to do this?” John’s voice was harsh. Judgmental.  
  
“He knows I’m the only prayer he’s got to stay alive and not be a demonic pawn,” Dean said coldly. “Things you could have considered before you took off for the wilds of god-knows-where!”  
  
John’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t volunteer an explanation of the long absence that had nearly ended Sam’s life. Dean decided they’d had more than enough togetherness for the night.  
  
“I’ll be in touch if anything changes.” He stormed out and slammed the door before John could say anything else to piss him off.  
  
John stared at himself in the mirror glued to the wall by the bed. His face was ashen and he held a blood-spotted cloth to the wrist he had just offered for a vampire’s bite.  
  
“Sometimes,” he told his reflection, trying for a certainty he wasn’t sure he felt, “death is better.” But his eyes were drawn to the pocket of his jacket where a leather cord and a pendent lay coiled up. Bobby had pressed it into his hands before he had left the junkyard. His old friend’s eyes were as serious as John had ever seen.  
  
“ _You asked me for this once, years ago, and I didn’t have it then. I finally got my hands on it a few weeks ago, and I’m giving it to you now, for Sam. It’s your decision if you want to give it to him or... not. Some things a man’s got to tend to himself._ ” His decision.  
  
Eventually, John fell into a restless sleep, where all of the streets were on fire, and an infant, just out of reach of his desperate hands, drowned endlessly in a pool of blood.  


  


 

To Be Continued... (within a week)

 


	3. Chapter 3

  
****

  


****

**Chapter Eight**

Sam crumpled up another page of the book and tossed it. It sailed in a graceful arc through the air to land... just shy of the little trashcan he was using as a basket. It was in good company there, alongside pages one through eighty-seven, minus the few that had actually made it inside. Sam tore out page eighty-nine and sent it to join its fellows on the carpet.

The constant irritation of being hungry was just one more layer to the stress he was already under, and restless energy was starting to make him consider stupid things again. Like how hard could a Hellhound _really_ be to kill? They could be touched, and there were knives in the kitchen. If he sharpened one, and had a handful of salt to throw at it first, maybe he could slow it down enough to go for its throat... Or at least force it to kill him, Meg’s orders aside. Of course that plan would depend on having salt in the house in the first place, which he didn’t. Sam ripped out another page and tossed it towards the basket. It rebounded off the rim and settled with most of the rest on the well-worn rug. Even his coordination sucked tonight.

Sam’s recollections of what happened during the few minutes he was semi-conscious in the daytime were generally limited to a sense of panic, blinding light, and the drone of voices over his head, but Ruby assured him the length of time was getting longer.

She had been standing in the doorway at sunset; the weight of her gaze on his back was as telling as the spicy aroma of the Chinese take-out she had brought him. “He’s pleased with your progress.”

“Screw you,” he had said, voice raspy from the daily session with the tube.

“This isn’t my fault, Sam.”

He had turned over to face her where she stood outlined by the bright lights of the hall. “Maybe not, but I don’t see you doing a whole hell of a lot to help me either.”

“I told you the score,” she had said. “You’re the one who doesn’t want to play ball.” Ruby held up the plastic bag. “Want company?”

“Yeah. Dean’s.”

She had dropped the bag on the nightstand with an irritated thud. Sam sat on the edge of the bed and reached for it, then pulled his arm back with a hiss. He prodded the long, angry burn down the length of his arm with a tentative finger and found blisters. “What happened?”

Ruby gestured towards the window and Sam was surprised to see heavy, dark curtains hanging over the slatted blinds. “You never said you burned in sunlight.”

Sam refrained from telling her that would have been impossible since he hadn’t known himself, the last time he had been exposed it had caused nothing more than some redness. But he wasn’t in a sharing sort of mood. “Someone leave the blinds open?”

She shrugged. “You usually have the blankets pulled up and the light through the blinds doesn’t go high enough to hit your face. Today he came in and your arm was... smoking.”

The news had caused a tight smile of satisfaction to curve the corners of his mouth. It gave Sam hope. Whatever the demons were doing to him, he wasn’t going down without a fight. He just needed more weapons. Or more back-up. But with more demonically tainted blood being washed through his body every day in an attempt to reverse what the vampire blood had been doing... the waiting game would be a losing one before long, no matter how much of a fight his body put up.

His stomach growled and Sam sighed. He had eaten the take-out Ruby had brought him earlier, but it had barely taken the edge off. The thought had occurred on and off that maybe what he was craving so badly was Dean, and more specifically-- Dean’s blood. It was an encouraging thought, even if still felt a little... off. He definitely wasn’t craving Ruby’s, or that of any other of his captors. Just the idea of swallowing demon blood caused the same queasy reaction that it always had.

Small favors, but still reassuring.

He dragged his thoughts back to the present. Sam ripped out another page and crumpled it up, but before he could throw it, the front door slammed hard enough to shake the wall he was leaning against. The noise had Sam’s instant attention, because other than the occasional creak of a floorboard, the demons drifted through the house like ghosts, and a slammed door spoke of anger. He was in favor of anything that pissed his captors off.

There was no guard on his door tonight, and no real need with the Hellhounds roaming the grounds, so Sam was able to creep down the short hallway in his bare feet and through the living room. He preferred to keep his own company, but there was only so much time he could brood in the tiny bedroom and he had paced every room of the house enough to automatically avoid the tell-tale squeaks in the ancient floor. The voices were coming from the kitchen. Sam crouched in the shadows of the dining room where anyone moving around was unlikely to trip over him. He recognized the yellow-eyed demon’s voice right off.

“--asking you for too much, Meg? All you had to do was _watch_ and _report_. Is that too taxing for your limited skills?” His voice brought to Sam’s mind images of snakes and crackling flames. The hair stood up on the back of his neck.

“You had me watching this one,” Meg said sullenly. “I have to use others to be my eyes and ears and it’s not my fault they can’t take orders.”

“What kind of demon are you if you can’t even keep the help in line?” Sam knew Ruby’s mocking tones instantly.

“I don’t know what place you think you have in this conversation,” Yellow-Eyes lashed back. “You were only given one task by your mistress and you seem to be failing as badly as Meg is.”

Ruby’s voice was lower when she spoke again.

“I’m _doing_ my job,” she insisted.

Sam’s eyes narrowed.

“Enough.” The yellow-eyed demon’s voice cut through the bickering and Meg and Ruby fell silent in its wake. “What’s happening in Peoria with our interest there?”

Nothing answered him but silence.

“I see,” he said after a long, awkward moment. “Another mess like this, Meg, and I might forget how fond I am of you. You’re coming with me; maybe another object lesson will help you be more careful in the future.” The demon raised its voice slightly. “And, Sam--”

Sam felt his heart skip a beat.

“Try not to get terribly excited about the situation. We won’t be leaving until you are all tucked in for the day, and Ruby and the rest of your playmates will still be here to make sure nothing interrupts your rest.”

A blast of hot, fetid air blew in Sam’s face. He stood and backed slowly up. There had been no sound, no movement of air, _nothing_ to indicate he hadn’t been perfectly alone in the dark room until the beast had chosen to make its presence known.

“And the hounds, of course,” Yellow-Eyes added casually.

~~~~~~~

Dean slapped a hand onto John’s motel room door once in warning, and then twisted the handle so the lock broke, letting himself in. John was sitting up in bed wearing his undershirt and boxers, with his hair standing on end and the covers still bunched up around his legs, but his eyes were clear and the gun he had leveled at Dean’s head was rock steady.

“Get out.”

Dean scooped discarded jeans up off the floor and tossed them on the bed. “Get dressed. It’s now or never.”

“Sam?” John asked, slowly lowering the gun as Dean paced restlessly at the end of the bed.

“Yes, _Sam_ ; what _else_ would I be talking about?”

John glanced towards the window. “It’s the middle of the day.”

Dean froze and glared. “Are you slow? Do you need a caffeine pump or a cold shower or something?”

“Why don’t you just tell me what the hell is going on?” John rubbed at his face with one hand, keeping the gun gripped firmly with the other and his eyes locked onto the uninvited vampire wandering his room.

“I was staking out the house; I saw a couple of demons leave,” Dean said with forced patience. “When they left, they took with them most of the aura of bad news the place was radiating. I don’t know how long they’ll be gone, and I don’t know how far they went. But if we’re going to do this, the time is now. Are you with me now? Because this is taking time and you’re _still sitting on your ass_.”

“He’s unguarded?”

“No.” Dean snorted. “I said some of the madmen left the asylum, not that he was being served up gift-wrapped on a plate. There’s still demons there. And fucking Hellhounds; I can smell their stench a mile away, but the big threats have gone to get their nails done or some other crap I don’t want to know about. Are you ready?”

John had finally set the gun down and dragged his jeans on. “Bobby will be here in a couple of hours--”

“What part of _I don’t know how long they’ll be gone_ are you having the trouble with?” Dean demanded.

“Do you have a plan?” John snapped back. “Because you’re still talking about the two of us against an unknown number of demons--”

“Fewer than there were last night.”

“Twenty is fewer than thirty,” John said grimly.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Including the hounds, we’re probably talking anywhere from four to eight.”

“And you’re sure they didn’t take Sam with them?”

“I’m sure. Now if you’re done primping, can you get your ass in the truck so we can get this over with before the real threats come back?”

John ignored him. “We need a plan.”

“Got one.” Dean grabbed John’s bag and looked around to see if there was anything else that needed to be packed. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way. But we’re not coming back here, so--”

John ripped his duffle bag from Dean’s hand and headed for the door. “This isn’t my first rodeo either. Let’s go.”

~~~~~~~

Dean had oversized dark glasses on and a hoodie pulled down to his eyebrows. His fingers drummed against the door with restless energy. “Are you ready?” 

“We need to be closer,” John said. “We’re still at least half a mile away. I can’t carry Sam and fight demons this far over open terrain.”

“If we get any closer you’re going to have to fight your way in too. This is better. I’ll go in first, get everything nice and stirred up, then signal you. You bring the truck in closer, grab Sam, and get the hell out.”

“This truck’s not exactly subtle,” John pointed out. “How much of a window do you think you can give me? I’m going to lose time looking for him.”

Dean was impressed with John’s self-control. His breathing and heart rate were so even he could have been reading the paper instead of preparing to storm a demonic fortification to rescue his son. “It’s a tiny house, and I have no idea. I can’t take guesses until I have a headcount-- but aren’t you some kind of fearsome monster hunter? You’ve got rock salt and holy water. If you get intercepted, improvise. Just don’t get Sam killed.”

John gave him a baleful look.

“Can I have that gun now?” Dean asked.

“You wouldn’t have this problem if you carried your own.”

Dean pulled down the glasses to give John the full benefit of his look. He didn’t bother replying. John leaned over and retrieved one of his back-ups from the glove compartment.

“Here.”

Dean took it and did a professional enough job of checking it over that John was grudgingly satisfied.

“I didn’t think you used guns,” John said.

“I didn’t say I didn’t know how,” Dean answered absently, attention once again focused on the sunny field and shallow wood that stood between them and the house where Sam was. To the sides and back behind the house stretched miles of undeveloped forest. “Just because I don’t usually use a certain weapon doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea to be familiar with it.”

John nodded shortly; he got that logic. “We’re ready then?”

“No time like the present. Try to resist the urge to shoot me.” Dean slid out of the truck and shrugged out of the oversized hoodie, leaving it pooled on the leather seat. “For Sam. Get it on him as soon as you can.”

“Why?” John asked suspiciously.

“He might not handle the sunlight so well,” Dean said simply, not wanting to get drawn into any kind of debate or argument. “It would suck if we went through all of this and he went up in flames in the home stretch. Also...” Dean hesitated, unsure how to phrase his next suggestion in a way that wouldn’t get Sam shot out of hand. “When you get him away from here, leave him alone. Don’t mess with him, put him in a room by himself and just close the door.” He slipped out of the truck and closed the door before John could ask any more questions, and vanished into the trees.

~~~~~~~

The few mouthfuls of blood Dean had taken from John the previous night were enough to make his skin prickle unpleasantly in the sunlight, but not enough to cause actual concern. He would rather deal with discomfort than the liability of the hoodie in a physical fight-- and there was definitely going to be an unholy brawl. Dean wasn’t even pretending to try and avoid it. He walked a direct path through the trees to the front door, enjoying the novelty of literally asking for trouble. He needed a big distraction to give John the window to find and grab Sam, and explosions took more work than just starting a fight. 

He was aware of the first hound about the time he walked out onto the unkempt lawn. It trailed behind him a good fifteen feet, paws like dinner plates making only the faintest rustle in the crisp leaves and tall grass. As one supernatural predator to another, Dean had to admire their stealth and stalking abilities-- but that was just professional courtesy. Before the mess with Sam had forced him to pay more attention, he had generally just discounted the demonic as too wasteful and arrogant to be of much interest.

And Dean had never much appreciated other people’s dogs.

He reached the door and tucked his sunglasses into a back pocket. Getting hit in the face wasn’t a big deal, getting hit in the face wearing glasses could be crippling. Dean pasted a smile on his face and rang the doorbell.

Showtime.

~~~~~~~

John waited with steeled nerves in the truck, counting minutes until he got the signal to act. It galled him to rely on Dean, but it would have taken him months to find Sam without the vampire’s help, and the odds of rescuing Sam intact without Dean were also abysmal. He ignored the little voice in the back of his head that wondered if _rescue_ was really the mission he should be embracing. Sunlight through the windshield was glaring in his eyes and he flipped the visor down in irritation. The movement caused a picture he kept taped to the backside of it to flutter free of the felt. It landed on his leg and he stared at it. A bright-eyed, smiling Mary held their infant son in a cheap studio photo-- Sears, or J.C. Penny’s maybe; whoever had been having a sale. He had forced himself to forget so much, needing clarity of thought to do his job well and calculate the risks that would keep him alive. But it didn’t take much to chink the armor when it was struck in the right place. The picture had been such a big deal to Mary, getting dressed up for their first family portraits. Sam was barely three months old, a sweet baby and still untouched by the shadows of a dark fate. John’s own face stared out at him from more than twenty years of time, and oceans of pain. Proud, open, and totally fucking clueless of the nightmare his life would be in a matter of weeks. _Their_ lives. 

John closed his eyes and tried to remember how Sam had looked the last time he had seen him. Not a child anymore by a long shot, barely even a young man. He’d buried a woman he loved and had been touched by the same fires that had consumed John’s own life. Hatred, vengeance, rage. Sam had been looking for a target, _needed_ that outlet, and John, who should have understood that drive better than anyone else, had sent him away. Rebuffed, and with no explanations-- because he was a coward, and couldn’t bring himself to tell Sam the truth.

Because he had wanted to keep his son _safe_. And now Sam was not only the target of demonic attention, but also a plaything for vampires.

So much for safety.

His bitter recriminations were cut off by the echoing crack of a gunshot. Dean’s signal that it was time for his part of the plan.

He drove the truck up cautiously to the dilapidated house, but nothing came to meet him. From around the back of the house, John could hear the occasional shout or snarl, but for the moment whatever Dean was engaged with seemed suitably distracted. John left the truck running and wished Dean grim good fortune as he headed for the front door, now hanging off its hinges in the entry-way. The sixth sense that let hunters survive the insanity they exposed themselves to had him ducking the hand that reached for his throat before he even registered the blur. He had the shotgun aimed as he straightened up.

“Your little bullets won’t hurt me,” sneered the black-eyed man facing him.

John didn’t bother replying, just pulled the trigger and watched the demon stagger under the double barrel of salt rounds. While the creature was stunned John draped a rosary around its throat with practiced ease and wrapped another one around its hands, effectively trapping it in the stolen flesh it wore, binding it with restraints more effective than the most tempered steel. It howled like he had used smoldering wire instead of fragile string and wooden beads and John shoved it into a closet and propped a chair under the handle. The rosaries would keep it too busy to get in his way for a few minutes, and by then he hoped to be long gone.

Dean had been right about the size of the house. The kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom and master bedroom only took seconds to clear. Unless they had Sam in some kind of root cellar, that left one place to search. John twisted the handle of the only closed door and pushed it open. It swung on silent hinges leaving John with a clear view of the figure lying on the bed, back to the door. Sam looked bigger than John remembered, and oddly fragile at the same time, crumpled bonelessly across the sagging mattress like he’d been discarded there. The threadbare sweatpants and t-shirt stained with what looked like old blood weren’t helping the image. The room was dark, heavy curtains over the window blocking out every trace of sunlight so that the only illumination came from the hall at his back. John flipped the switch and his eyes narrowed. The faded blood wasn’t just on Sam’s t-shirt. It stained the pillow and sheets he was curled up on too.

John’s duty as a hunter and his burden as a father wrestled in his chest. The shotgun in his hands was an incredible weight, heavier than he could ever remember it being. Sam was... asleep, lashes a dark curve against too-pale cheeks. His breathing was calm and deep, undisturbed by the free-for-all going on outside, clearly audible through the window glass. John could do it now and Sam would never have to wake up again. Never have to worry about vampires, or the path he had been condemned to at the age of six months. Never have to find out what the demons wanted him for badly enough to destroy their entire family. John brushed a lock of hair gently from Sam’s face, the brief moment he had to make a decision passing with each heartbeat. He wondered which of them Sam’s painless death would be a greater mercy to.

Was honest enough to suspect it might be himself.

“Well, look at what the cat dragged in.”

John spun, and as he did, something wrenched the shotgun from his hands with incredible force. He found himself facing a petite woman with blond hair and an unamused expression. She held his own gun on him like she knew what she was doing and the strength and speed she had used to rip it from his grip told him all he needed to know about her nature. Salt rounds might not kill him, but they sure as hell wouldn’t do him a lot of good from that range either.

“The great John Winchester. I wonder what you’re doing here?”

“You know damn well what I’m here for,” John said levelly. He wasn’t going to get the drop on her like he had the other, and frantically reviewed his limited options.

“No,” she disagreed. “I know what the _vampire_ is doing here; he wants to take Sam away from us and share his own special... gift. But you? A _hunter_? I’m not so sure you have the same kind of interest in Sam’s continued health.”

“He’s my son,” John said tightly.

“Yes,” she smiled. “That must be quite the dilemma. I’m almost interested enough in seeing how you resolve it to leave you two alone for a few minutes. But I have my own use for Sam, so I’m afraid that will have to--”

There was a flash of movement at her belt and then her pale blue eyes flew wide in shock as a flash of light crackled behind them. She coughed, and more light flickered under her skin, visible even through her clothes. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth.

“Sam--” she wheezed, and then the shotgun fell from nerveless hands and she crumpled.

In the shadows behind her, Dean was standing with a look of surprise on his face. He bent and pulled a long, serrated blade from her back and gave it an admiring look.

“Cool,” he said and slicked the blood off with his thumb then tucked it into his own belt. He glanced up at John. “Are you okay?

“I’m good.”

“Then get him the hell out of here,” Dean nodded towards the bed, gaze lingering for only the briefest of seconds. “They’re calling for help, and I don’t know how far away help is.” Dean jerked the curtain aside to look around the front yard, and then vanished through the doorway and was gone.

John grabbed Sam by one shoulder and rolled him onto his back. Hazel eyes fluttered open and after a moment focused on John’s face. Sam’s pupils had shrunk down to pin-pricks, making him look almost blind, and John didn’t like how the paleness of his skin was starting to turn pink where sunlight through the open curtains touched it. Sam gave him a sleepy smile and mumbled something that might have been “dad.”

John had the distinct impression Sam wasn’t all there. He didn’t think smiles were what Sam would be giving him if he was in any state of actual consciousness, not considering their recent history. He pulled Bobby’s gift from his pocket and looped it around Sam’s throat, making sure it was tucked securely into his t-shirt. “Hey, kiddo. Time to go.”

Sam kind of nodded and then his eyelids drifted down again. John shook him gently, and then less gently as a scream sounded from somewhere close by and Sam showed no inclination to move.

“Sam, _wake up_ ,” John barked in the tone he had learned from the most feared drill sergeant to ever cross his path. It had served him well in Sam’s childhood, and served him well now.

Sam’s eyes didn’t open again, but he frowned and shrunk back from John’s grip. His words were slurred, but intelligible. “No, won’t... Let... go... Can’t make me.... swallow that...”

The faded bloodstains covering Sam’s clothes and the bedding suddenly made a kind of horrible sense, and John tightened his grip, hauling Sam into a sitting position. He untied the hoodie he had fastened around his waist and quickly pulled it onto Sam, zipping the front and tugging the hood down low. Sam was too damn big, but John managed to get him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and headed for the front door.

~~~~~~~

Behind the house, Dean heard the rumble as the truck shifted into gear. His sensitive hearing followed its progress all the way down the long, winding road until the distinctive sound blended with the highway and Sam and John were gone. He was injured and furious, but Sam was safe. 

Now all John had to do was hold up his end of the bargain by taking Sam where they had agreed to meet and things would be more-or-less fine. There had been something... off, about the way Sam had felt in the room. It wasn’t the fledgling bond the demons had broken, and it wasn’t the demon blood he had been forced to swallow in the time he had been captive. It was something... else, something that ruffled Dean’s feathers and made him grimly suspicious that if John tried to betray him by stealing Sam away, he would get what he richly deserved.

But Sam didn’t deserve it, and Dean didn’t want to lose Sam to something so stupidly preventable. All John had to do with stick with the program, for at least as long as it took Dean to catch up with them. He had already given John all the warning he could even before he had laid eyes on Sam for himself.

“Just go down already!” Dean snarled at the demon circling him. He had a fractured leg that wouldn’t let him simply run from them, and he had important house-burning plans he still needed to get to. Just in case Sam had left anything behind the demons might find useful. There was also the lingering chance that the demons he had seen leave earlier were on their way back, and nothing was stopping the ones he had already mangled from finding new bodies and returning to the fight. Though considering how deserted the area was, hopefully that would take them a while. “I’ve got better things to do!”

And then one of the hounds indicated it hadn’t had enough either. Dean pulled the blade he had taken off the corpse of the demon he had killed in Sam’s room and dug in for the long haul.

  
 ****

 **Chapter Nine**

There were less than ten minutes left before sunset when Dean finally pulled up at the weathered motel he had asked John to meet him at. It was a quaint little pit he had located in the few minutes he had taken for logistics before dragging John off to rescue Sam earlier. The place was set back from the road and the Internet pictures showed enough overgrowth that limp or semi-conscious people that had to be moved would be fairly well hidden from casual view. It did not in any sense of the word appear to be a happening kind of place, and in Dean’s experience, desperate people asked fewer questions. It had been a universal truth over the centuries.

He found John’s truck parked in a gravel lot on the backside of the motel, and left his stolen car a few spots away. The owner wasn’t going to look for it, but better safe than sorry. Whatever hunters thought, Dean knew damn well that some humans were wastes of life and he’d been in need of a great deal of blood, both for healing and for Sam. So he had helped himself to one, and afterwards, the car his meal would no longer be needing. Humanity wouldn’t grieve overmuch.

A grim-faced John Winchester opened the door at his knock, then stepped back to give him room to enter. Inside, the place was the usual kind of run-down affair Dean recognized from other venues of the same nature. A heavy door set in the wall was cracked open a few inches, indicating that John had either rented, or just broken into, the adjoining suite.

“Any problems?”

“I just brought him in and put him to bed,” John said shortly.

Dean nodded. “Was he dead weight?”

John shook his head. “He kept wanting to lean on me in the car, almost pulled me down onto the bed with him, but I don’t think he was really conscious.”

Dean checked his watch. “No, he wouldn’t have been.”

“I thought he wasn’t supposed to be awake at all.”

“They’ve been flooding his system with demonic blood for over a week now,” Dean said, tired and not in the mood for conversation. “Who knows what’s been fucked up?” He met John’s eyes. “I’m glad you remembered the plan.”

They both knew it wasn’t memory that would have been the problem.

~~~~~~~

The room was dark, with only the faintest hints of sunset flame creeping around the edges of the blackout curtains, but darkness hadn’t inhibited his vision for months. Sam frowned and blinked slowly up at the unfamiliar ceiling. His throat didn’t hurt and there was no hint of copper-tinged iron in his mouth, so already the night was off to a better start than he’d had for a while.

The bed he lay on wasn’t any more comfortable than the lumpy twin he had been sleeping on for two weeks, but it was certainly a lot larger. The whir of the air conditioner drowned out any other ambient sound that might have helped him figure out his situation and he sat up with the oddest feeling that his dad should be there. He picked at the t-shirt he was wearing, but it and the sweatpants were the same he had had since he was abducted from the warehouse, a little worse for wear after two weeks of constant use and a few washings in the sink. The hoodie was new, though. Sam examined the front for a logo, but it was blank, and the movement caused something to pull against his throat. He followed the rough cord he found there to some kind of pendant hanging over his heart. It looked like... well, he wasn’t quite sure what it looked like. Some kind of mask maybe. He turned it over in his hands, wondering what all had happened while he had slept the day away.

“Leave that alone.” Familiar hands tugged the pendant from his grasp and tucked it back into his shirt.

“What is it?” Sam asked, too stunned by Dean’s sudden presence to really react.

“Something Bobby gave your dad; it’s a powerful anti-locating charm. While you’re wearing it, the demons could have a pint of your blood, a handful of your hair, and directions to your freaking house-- and they still wouldn’t be able to locate you. No one else can either, for that matter. But the instant it comes off, you light up like Vegas to anyone searching, so don’t mess with it.”

“The demons can’t find me, even with the blood-link between us?” Sam asked.

“No one can, not with magic. You’re safe. For real this time.” But the amulet and what it meant took a backseat as Sam shook off his shock and reached out to haul Dean into a crushing embrace. Dean hugged him back so tightly that Sam thought his ribs might crack. Preferred it to being let go.

“If this is some twisted dream and I wake up and I’m back in that fucking room with the fucking demons-- I’m just going to chance the Hellhounds, okay?”

“I thought being a hunter meant you didn’t wait around to be rescued like some princess in a tower,” Dean said in response. “Aren’t you supposed to break yourself out and be back for breakfast or something?”

Sam’s eyes narrowed, but before he could pull free of Dean’s grip, Dean mouthed at the skin over his pulse, sucking so that Sam felt only the faintest impression of teeth. After the fear and uncertainty of the last two weeks, even the hint of a bite was more than enough to short-circuit his irritation and bring other, more important things, back into focus. Dean being _Dean_ was actually a relief. “How did you find--”

“Later,” Dean growled, running hands over Sam’s body; impersonal, searching touches that reminded Sam of another reunion, years ago. Of another kidnapping, and a different kind of pain.

“I’m fine, Dean.”

“You’re _not_ fine,” Dean snapped; he pushed Sam’s restraining hand away and slid off the bed to the carpet. He dragged one hand down the back of Sam’s thigh, then down his calf to a sock-clad foot. John’s socks. The only thing on Sam that didn’t reek of demons, with the exception of the hoodie.

“I am. They didn’t--”

“You stink like the Pit and if you’re ‘ _fine_ ,’ then what is that burn and the fucking bandages on your arm about?”

Sam shrugged off the hoodie and pulled his sleeve up while Dean continued counting toes.

“This is from when I tried to _rescue myself_ ,” Sam said pointedly, peeling the bandage off so Dean could see the mostly-healed wounds. “It was an early object lesson. What was I supposed to do about a pack of _Hellhounds_? Hit them with a skillet and take off? The burn was just sun. Apparently, I don’t handle it well now.”

As a response, Dean ran a hand up between Sam’s legs, cupping the bulge there and letting his touch linger, gentle. Sam sucked in a deep breath.

“They didn’t touch me there, Dean,” he managed to get out.

“Are you sure?” The fabric was so thin between his hand and Sam’s rapidly filling erection that Sam might as well have been naked.

Sam nodded almost reluctantly. “Yeah, yeah. I’m... sure.”

Dean trailed his hand slowly upwards to the waistband of the sweatpants. He was still on his knees between Sam’s splayed legs and Sam was finding that there were suddenly a lot of other things he wanted to do besides talk. Dean hooked a fingertip in the elastic, then abruptly slid his hand to Sam’s thigh and pulled himself back up onto the bed. He leaned in and pressed the side of his mouth to the curving slashes in Sam’s bicep, then ran his tongue across them and turned his head to meet Sam’s eyes. “They broke our bond.”

“I...” Sam remembered waking up with tears on his face and the echoing sense of loss. “I know.”

Dean grabbed his chin and Sam fought not to pull back from his expression of feral intensity. “ _You’re mine._ ”

“Yes,” Sam managed around the pain of the grip on his face. “I know. I _told_ them. I tried to stop them.”

Dean moved his hand from Sam’s chin to his shoulder, grip fierce as he nuzzled under his ear.

“You should have tried harder,” he breathed, the words making Sam’s blood run cold.

“ _Dean_.” Sam tried to push him back, which only made the fingers tighten and a low growl rumble out of Dean’s chest. “I’m _yours_. I did everything I could. The only other option was to kill myse--”

Which was as far as Sam got before he was shoved back on the bed hard enough to force the air out of his lungs. The look on Dean’s face as he straddled Sam’s waist was wild and not entirely sane.

“Mine.”

“Yes,” Sam agreed, lying very still beneath Dean’s weight. “I _know_.”

“You smell like _them_.”

Sam took the forming of complete sentences as a good sign and tentatively rested one hand on Dean’s thigh. “I couldn’t stop them, Dean. They made me swallow their blood; they wanted to turn me back.”

Dean closed his eyes and tipped his head back, struggling for his control back. “I know what they did.”

“Dean--”

“Shut up, Sam. Give me a minute.”

Sam didn’t say anything else, but he kept his hand in place and rubbed his thumb back and forth on the worn denim, trying to offer Dean that much of an anchor against whatever was going on in his head.

When Dean looked back down, his expression was calm. “They took you away, and they broke us apart, and I almost lost my fucking _mind_. I don’t think I can survive that again. I didn’t want to the first time it happened, and this time... at least I knew you were still alive.” He smiled without humor. “It doesn’t even have anything to do with how much I like you, and I _do_ like you, Sam. It’s... biological, to protect a fledgling. Instinctive.” he reached out and ran fingers over the half-healed slashes on Sam’s arm. “You don’t mind if I have a GPS chip shoved up your ass, do you?”

Sam wanted desperately to ask about the _first time_ Dean mentioned on occasion. He knew the woman had died and hunters had been responsible, but there was a deeper story he wanted to pry out. Dean was a master at avoiding the topic, though, and this was not the time. “You don’t think that might be a little... extreme?”

“No,” Dean said flatly. “It’s just all I can think of until something harder to remove comes along. Did anything change while they... had you?”

“Yes,” Sam admitted. “I wake up before it’s fully dark now. And... in the middle of the day. I don’t remember much,” Sam hastened to add, seeing the darkening of Dean’s expression. “It’s just for a few minutes. But it was getting longer every time. And I guess the photosensitivity has gotten a little worse.”

“Nothing else?”

“That’s not _enough_?” Sam asked, shoving at Dean’s thigh to get him to move off so Sam could sit up. Dean ignored the push, settling more of his weight in an unmistakable indication to _knock it off_.

“Just checking.”

But there was something else in the searching look and thoughtful tone.

“You’re lying,” Sam said.

Dean’s smile grew lazy and the edges softened into something that Sam was more familiar with.

“Are you sure that’s something you want to be saying to me in this position, Sam?” He ground back a little; teasing Sam’s faded erection into renewed interest.

“That’s not much of an offer. You’re still wearing your jeans,” Sam pointed out, pushing at him again to move, wanting the freedom to strip out of confining cloth and indulge in a more primitive kind of reunion. 

“I wouldn’t let you drive, anyways.” Dean’s eyes were hungry and he let them slide from Sam’s face to the vein pulsing in his throat. “I’m feeling the need to reclaim my property. And that claiming is going to be hard, and deep, and often. After everything I’ve been through trying to find you, it’s a mood that’s likely to last awhile, so might as well get used to it.”

Sam didn’t particularly care what direction things went, as long as it happened soon. He grabbed a handful of Dean’s shirt and started to haul him down, but was interrupted by a rumbling growl from his stomach.

Dean pried Sam’s hand loose and his smile lost some of its sexual promise to a wry quirk. “At least something here has its priorities straight. The sooner we get things rolling, the sooner your body will get things sorted out. Fucking monsters,” he spat, “I could happily spend a few centuries hunting them down and pissing all over their plans for this.”

He locked his gaze with Sam’s and bit deeply into his own wrist. Blood immediately welled from the puncture wounds and ran down his hand. His fingers gently brushed Sam’s lips and Sam willingly opened his mouth for the offering, welcoming the communion his body had craved.

But it was... odd. The taste was as Dean’s blood had always been-- not the gagging iron and copper the demons had forced on him, but a sweet heaviness that exploded over his tongue like the flavor of life, desirous and incredible. And it was, but... the first mouthful he swallowed didn’t seem to hit that hollow spot in his belly that had troubled him for days. The second mouthful didn’t either. Sam made a vague sound of discontent and pulled at Dean’s arm, covering the wound itself with his mouth and drinking from the source. After a few seconds, the odd feeling faded and Sam let the strangeness go as another weird effect of what the demons had done.

Dean slid off of Sam until he was able to lie pressed against his side without disturbing the feeding. “Just a little more now.” Sam tightened his grip and Dean smiled. “A little bit more, and then my turn. We’ll do this again later, and then again. It’s going to take a lot of blood between us to undo what they did to you. But we’ll get there, and so much past it... You have no idea what it’s like, Sam. No _idea_ what the world will be like for you.”

He pulled his wrist free after a few minutes, licking deep into Sam’s mouth to taste the flavor of his own blood and claiming Sam’s very breath before he could muster the focus to protest.

“Bite me,” Sam hissed as soon as Dean pulled back enough to let oxygen pass between them.

Dean licked a few drops of blood off Sam’s chin and shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Why not?” Something seemed to occur to Sam suddenly and he looked around with a hint of alarm. “Are we safe? Do we need to move?”

“We’re safe,” Dean calmed him. Sort of safe anyway. For a little bit. “We just need to work some things out, and it will probably be easier without fang marks in your throat.”

Sam frowned in confusion, but had other things on his mind than trying to force Dean into explanations he obviously didn’t want to give. “Do it somewhere else then.”

He grabbed one of Dean’s hands and pulled it back down to the waistband of his sweatpants, slipping their entwined fingers beneath the elastic in an unmistakable suggestion of other places he would welcome Dean’s mouth.

Dean heard footsteps approaching the door from the other room and didn’t bother to reclaim his hand, wrapping it around Sam’s dick as he kissed Sam again, deeply and thoroughly. Staking his ownership in the only way time would allow.

“Sorry,” he breathed into Sam’s ear just as the door flew open and the light switch was flipped on.

“What the-- _Dad_?!” Sam gasped, eyes wide with shock. Dean held him in place against his instinctive jerk to escape, wanting to make sure John got a good eyeful of the situation: the fresh blood on the collar of Sam’s shirt and his lips swollen from kisses--and both of their hands down the front of Sam’s pants. Dean didn’t think John needed more of a roadmap to what exactly had been going on while he paced out front and held some kind of muttered conversation with Bobby on his cell phone.

“I thought you were there...” Sam said in a very confused voice as he stared at his father, not really struggling yet against Dean’s hold as John stood frozen in the doorway. Something was different about his dad, and not just in the subtle changes more than three years of time had wrought. Before his bemused thoughts could isolate the subtle _change_ , the reality of the situation clicked behind Sam’s eyes and broke his stunned stillness. Sam shoved Dean off in a fit of sudden fury, uncaring that he landed on the floor.

“You knew!” Sam said, wiping his mouth in disgust. “You knew he was out there and you... I... Jesus, Dean! What the hell were you _thinking_?”

Dean propped himself up on his elbows on the carpet and raked Sam’s body with a look of such possessiveness that even through his rage and bewilderment, Sam felt the burn of interest. It didn’t amuse him. Dean gave him a long minute to grasp the picture, and then said simply, “You know what I was thinking.”

Sam’s anger was hardly abated by that, but a screaming fight with the vampire he was sleeping with in front of his _dad_ , of all people, would only compound the embarrassment of what had already been witnessed.

“Get out,” Sam snapped at him.

Dean’s eyes narrowed and his gaze flicked from John back to Sam. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m not _asking_ , Dean,” Sam said. “You leave, or I do. This conversation doesn’t need a third wheel.”

John’s arms were crossed and his expression was grim, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.

Dean gave Sam another long look, this one more searching. Sam felt an odd shift in Dean’s interest.

“How are you feeling?” Dean asked abruptly.

“How am I _feeling_?” Sam echoed incredulously. “Well, I just spent two weeks in the company of demons that kidnapped me, then was enjoying our reunion when that--” his sweeping gesture took in the bed he was still sitting on and his father in the doorway, “happened, courtesy of you. And now I’m just generally a little pissed and confused. Why? How are _you_ feeling, Dean?”

“You’re not... hungry, or anything?”

“ _Hungry_?” Sam stared at him. Dean stared patiently back, obviously waiting for an answer.

Sam looked to John for any insight, but his dad only raised an eyebrow.

“Uh, I’m fine. We, you know. I’m... fine.” A sudden though occurred to Sam and he wondered if he didn’t know what was behind Dean’s weird behavior after all. “He’s not going to kill me, you know,” he said quietly to Dean. “He could have done that at the house if that’s what he wanted. It was you who pulled me from the room, right?” Sam finally addressed his father.

“Yes,” John said.

“Dean. Please,” Sam sighed. “I’m _fine_ , but I need some space here.”

Dean glanced between them again, then shrugged and stood up. “Well, you might not be hungry now, but you should still eat. I’ll run out and grab some burgers or something. Probably take about half an hour. Okay?”

“Yes. Thank you,” Sam said gratefully. As much as he didn’t want to have this confrontation with his dad, it would be infinitely worse if Dean were there to ‘help’.

Dean picked the hoodie that still carried his scent up off the bed where it had been discarded and held it out wordlessly. Sam slid it back on, accepting the compromise. Dean cast another oddly uncertain look between him and John, and then shrugged and headed out the door. “Thirty minutes, Sam. Be back soon.”

The room was silent in his wake. John and Sam stared at each other, neither really having a good place to start a conversation that was more than three years building. Sam wanted to stand, but thought it might be too confrontational. After what John had walked in on, the room felt close, and too intimate. He wondered if they would still be in the exact same positions when Dean returned, and if it might not be better than what might happen if he spoke.

Finally, John relaxed a little, letting his arms fall to his sides. “Why don’t we go into the other room? I grabbed some drinks from the vending machine outside.”

Sam nodded gratefully and followed him through the doorway into the adjoining motel room. It was identical in layout and the curtains were just as closed, but the bed was crisply made and John sat on the low dresser, leaving Sam the room’s only chair.

“You want Sprite or Dr. Pepper?”

Sam wanted water, but wasn’t about to complain. “Sprite.”

John tossed him the can and he pulled the tab to the familiar hiss of carbonation.

After another minute of awkward silence, Sam cleared his throat. “So, uh... where have you been?”

“Russia,” John grunted, taking a long sip of his own soda.

Sam nodded. “Long way off. I hear they still have phones, though. You know I tried to call?”

“Sam--”

The anger bubbling up took Sam by surprise. “You know they tried to kill me, right? All the other fucking hunters out there? Your _friends_? I say ‘your’ because they sure as hell aren’t mine. They never liked me, Dad, but I thought... I don’t know, maybe they could just feel something in me they didn’t approve of. Like maybe my dedication wasn’t as rabid as theirs, as _yours_. But you know what? Turns out that wasn’t it at all, they didn’t like me because the same demon that killed Mom marked me as some kind of _pet_ , and I was the _only one who didn’t know_.”

“You weren’t the _only one who didn’t know_ ,” John snapped. “And I didn’t know _what_ the demon wanted you for, and I wanted to keep you _safe_. Why do you think I didn’t tell you!?”

“I have no fucking idea why you didn’t tell me! And it sure as hell _seemed_ like I was the only one who didn’t know when they all decided to _kill_ me,” Sam retorted, trying to keep his voice down and not give in to the desire to scream.

“I knew you, Sam,” John said in a low voice. “And I knew what you would do. I was going to tell you when you were old enough, and then... you went to college, and I thought maybe you would never have to know. That you would be safe in your normal life with your normal friends and away from hunting. I thought I would have time to figure everything out. And then that girl died--”

“Jessica,” Sam growled. “That _girl_ was my fiancée and she had a _name_.”

“When _Jessica_ died,” John stressed, “I couldn’t tell you then... I didn’t want you going after it. I didn’t want you _running straight into its arms_ before I even knew what it wanted, and I knew that was _exactly_ what you would try to do! I’ve _been_ there, I know what you felt.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about how I _feel_ about anything,” Sam said.

“I _know_ you wanted vengeance, I _know_ you wanted to hunt it down and make it scream in pain like _she_ screamed in pain. To watch it die like _she_ died. I know, because twenty years later I still see your mother every time I close my eyes, and at the heart of everything, you are _just like me_.”

Sam couldn’t meet his father’s eyes, and studied the grain of the fake wood he was sitting on instead. “You’re wrong,” he said in a low voice. “I’m not like you. There are mornings I wake up and I can’t even remember what color her eyes were anymore.”

“Sam--” John sighed.

“No.” Sam shook his head. “No. You should have told me. Of all things, _this_ you should have told me . ”

“Yes. I should have.”

Sam looked up in surprise. In his entire life, he couldn’t remember his father ever admitting to being wrong about something.

“It’s your life, and you aren’t a kid anymore,” John continued, sounding as tired as Sam felt. “But you’re always going to be _my_ kid, and you’re all I have left of her. I wanted to protect you, and I didn’t think...” John trailed off, then finished bitterly, “I didn’t think they would come after you. Not yet. I thought there was time.”

Sam didn’t know what to do with that. “I might have, uh... expedited matters. This thing with Dean... Whatever it is they want with me, I might have made it happen sooner.”

John nodded, looking unsurprised. “Did they tell you?”

“Something about Lucifer, and ‘special’ kids just like me, all over the world. People that have weird powers.” Sam gauged his father’s expression. “You don’t look surprised.”

“I’m not,” John replied grimly. “What do you think I was doing in Russia? There are hunters there who have been dealing with demons longer and with better results than anyone in this country. They already knew about the yellow-eyed demon. I needed to learn from them; I needed to find out everything they could show me.”

“He was at the house,” Sam said.

“The yellow-eyed demon?” John asked sharply.

Sam nodded. “He did this to me. The rest were just taking orders.”

John swore. “The powerful demon that left this morning.”

“He and one of the others.” Sam returned to the previous topic, not done trying to find answers. “Why didn’t you return my calls? I was in trouble, and you weren’t there, and no one would help me. They wouldn’t even tell me why. They tied me up in a basement and tried to _beat me to death_ , and not even Bobby would give me the time of day.”

“I lost my phone.”

Sam laughed without humor. “You... lost your phone? Did you think about _getting a new one_?! Or calling me and letting me know you were going to fall off the freaking map?”

“I was in Siberia, a couple of hundred miles from the nearest phone booth, Sam. I fell through some ice on a hunt, got swept over a waterfall and hit some rocks. It was weeks before I could get out of my cot, and months before I could hobble around without leaning on things. I wasn’t in the heart of civilization and the only thing those people knew about phones is that you don’t make them out of reindeer parts, which is where almost everything else they have comes from,” John explained. “When I _did_ get back, _you_ weren’t answering anymore, and Bobby said you’d had a bad run-in with some people and had gone underground. He didn’t say anything else and he and I had some words about that later. But back then, I asked him to look for you and contact me if you needed help when he found you. They have whole libraries of information over there that no one here has even seen before, Sam; I felt like I was so close...” John set his own can on top of the television and crossed his arms again.

Sam felt some of his anger deflate. “You were in Siberia convalescing with... reindeer herders?”

“They make a mean moonshine. Don’t ask out of what.”

They stared at each other.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve seen those guys on National Geographic specials before; they seemed to have phones in those videos,” Sam finally said.

“Some do, some don’t,” John shrugged. “They kept me alive, and when I was well enough, they got me over the mountains and back to where I needed to be. I didn’t spend the time telling them their hospitality was lacking.” He exhaled heavily. “I didn’t tell you about the demon blood, Sam, but I didn’t abandon you either. Not on purpose. I’ve never been father of the year, so I can’t say you should have known better, but... It wasn’t my intention. I wouldn’t have left you like that.”

“Did you even try to send me a message of some sort?” Sam asked.

“There wasn’t exactly a post office. The messages I sent reached town about the same time I did. By then you were already gone.”

An awkward silence fell again. John’s explanation didn’t entirely erase the outrage of betrayal and abandonment, but long experience told Sam it was the best he was going to get. His dad had been chasing the yellow-eyed demon, and he would expect Sam to understand that everything else took second place to that singular goal. There wasn’t anything else to say, so he just nodded and fiddled with his Sprite can.

John cleared his throat. “So... guys, huh?”

Sam watched him warily. This was the part of the conversation he had been dreading the most, and the part most likely to lead to violence. “Just the one.”

“You know it’s not the guy part I’ve got a problem with.”

“Yeah,” Sam said shortly, not offering anything else.

“I just don’t... how could you do this?” John sounded genuinely bewildered, and Sam knew for John it couldn’t have been any more blasphemous than if Sam was a priest who had suddenly announced from the pulpit that he was taking up cocaine and choir boys. “Did he force you?”

“Force... _No_.” Sam glared. Not entirely anyway, but that was between him and Dean. No parents required. “He saved me from the hunters, and when one of them almost managed to kill me, he offered me a way to live, and to not be some chew-toy for whatever the demons want. He didn’t _force_ anything; this was my _choice. Dean_ is my choice. I wasn’t ready to die. I... trust him. He’s earned it, and this is what I want.”

John’s gaze settled on the fresh bloodstains on Sam’s collar that Dean had left there with his fingers. “This is a relationship of _trust_?”

Sam resisted the urge to pull the hoodie closed to cover the stain. “He’s there when I need him to be, and I _trust him_ to have my back.”

John accepted the rebuke with a flinch and then it was his turn to look away. The movement gave Sam a clear view of the side of his father’s neck. He had never noticed how he could pick out the faint traces of muscles and veins under the delicate skin before.

“I did what I thought best,” John said.

“I know,” Sam replied. Simple, honest. It was about the bigger picture for his dad, had always been about his grand obsession. He couldn’t blame him for that, but he wouldn’t be sidelined for it again either. He had to come first in something, for _someone_ , and what he had with Dean left him with that security. He might doubt his path sometimes, but he never doubted Dean, or Dean’s intentions. The vampire could be entirely _too_ honest sometimes.

John was still talking. Something about Bobby, and knowing about Dean, and a note with no name delivered to a library in Kiev. Sam caught something about a warehouse and an agreement, about demons, but he was having trouble paying attention. There was a faint buzzing in his ears, and a bruise on his dad’s wrist that looked _fascinating_. And... enticingly familiar.

“Sam? Sam, are you listening to me at all?”

Sam blinked and forced himself to focus. Something in the back of his mind was screaming for his attention, but it was distant, and swamped by the odd wave of lassitude sweeping through him. He felt good... and... something else.

“Sam?”

His dad’s voice sounded almost like they were underwater, slow and deep. Sam blinked heavily. “Yeah, I’m just...” a word floated to the surface, “thirsty.”

John looked concerned. “Do you want another soda? Or something else?”

The water blurred the words into an unintelligible mess to Sam’s ears, but he liked the sound of his father’s voice and nodded a little. His father had shifted and his sleeves hid his wrists again, so Sam was watching how things moved in his neck as he swallowed and spoke. It was beautiful, and complicated, and he couldn’t believe he had never noticed before...

John walked to the tiny bathroom and unwrapped one of the plastic cups. Sam stood up too and moved a few feet closer. Through the water was a steady thumping; it was the most interesting thing Sam had ever heard and he needed to be closer... his mouth was aching horribly and he couldn’t stop himself from taking another step. His dad had _something_ , and Sam just wanted to see... The pain in his mouth sharpened and suddenly Sam knew _exactly_ what it was he had been craving for days, why the demons had turned his stomach and even Dean hadn’t quite managed to fill the hollow ache of hunger. The buzzing in his ears and the odd lassitude snapped as reality poured back in. Sam’s eyes widened in horror just as his dad noticed him in the mirror and turned with a frown.

“Sam?” John held out the cup.

Sam clapped one hand over his mouth just in case and backed away so fast he caught one foot on the chair leg and stumbled into the bed. He regained his balance and backed closer to the door. “Air,” he managed. “I need some... air.”

“Sam, what the hell--”

“Just give me some space!” Sam found the doorknob with one hand and twisted the lock. “I just... I need a few minutes.”

“You can’t leave.” John started toward him and Sam flung up one hand, grateful when his father stopped. He raked his tongue over his teeth and didn’t feel anything unusual, but his mouth still ached and he needed to get out of the room.

“I’m not going to. I just need a little space. Been cooped up for awhile, you know? I’m going to walk around outside. I won’t be out of shouting distance. Promise.” Sam tried to keep his desperation under control, but if his dad tried to grab him, he had no idea what would happen.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Because his father would really be the person he would go to for help if he wasn’t.

“Yeah,” Sam tried a smile-- knew it was a bad attempt from the darkening of his dad’s expression, but didn’t care as long as John let him go.

“Well, I’ll just make some more calls, then,” John said slowly.

Sam nodded and fled outside, leaving his father staring suspiciously in his wake.

  
 ****

 **Chapter Ten**

The woods were thin but fairly deep, and most importantly, deserted. Sam staggered a good twenty feet into them before he fell to his knees, shaking. He was afraid of what he might find if he inspected his mouth with his fingers, so just wrapped his arms around himself while the dampness of the earth beneath his knees seeped slowly into his pants and the light breeze rustled the leaves overhead. The clean, crisp air was clearing his head. He wanted to run until he was so exhausted he couldn’t move, but didn’t dare go any further than he had promised. He still didn’t know the exact situation with the demons, or where they were, or if they might have to leave in a hurry.

Sam heard the soft crunch of a twig behind him and knew it was a deliberate gift. He leaped to his feet and spun. “What the hell is _happening_ to me?”

Dean eyed him appraisingly. “Calm down.”

“ _You_ calm down!” Sam yelled, forgetting everything he had been schooling himself on for the last half hour regarding stealth and control. “Do you have any idea what _almost happened_ in there? Because I _sure as hell don’t_!” He was vibrating with nerves, and resisting the urge to try and shake some comprehension into Dean’s calm face was almost more than he could manage.

Dean crossed his arms patiently. “Are you done?”

“Done?!” The question ended on a note that Sam would have found embarrassing in any other situation; in this case, he didn’t even notice. “I could... I could _hear my dad’s pulse_ , Dean. I wanted to _taste_ it. I couldn’t even stop myself; it’s like I wasn’t in control of my _own body_. And... I think something was happening in my mouth; it hurt. It still hurts. What the hell is _going on_?”

Dean reached for his face and Sam dodged his hand, glaring.

“I can’t help you if you won’t let me look, Sam. You want answers, you need to cooperate. Here--” he glanced around, “sit on this log.”

Sam grudgingly complied, feeling his blood pressure start to ebb downwards now that he wasn’t alone, imagining worst-case scenarios and his father’s lifeless body on the motel room floor. Dean brushed a thumb over his lips in silent request and Sam opened his mouth, sitting still while Dean made a brief but thorough exploration.

“You’re fine.”

“I’m not,” Sam insisted, voice thick with tears of frustration and the stress of too much happening in too short a period of time. “I almost _ate_ my _father_. I almost--” He caught a glimpse of Dean’s face and cut himself off. “You don’t even look surprised,” he accused. “Did you expect this to happen?! Of course you did; that’s why you asked if I was hungry before you left! Why the hell wouldn’t you warn me about this?” Sam had had just about enough of people keeping secrets from him for one day. Or a lifetime.

Dean crouched in front of him and steadied himself with a hand on Sam’s knee. Sam almost shrugged it off but Dean trapped his gaze and there was nothing in his green eyes but patience and concern. “Sam, you need to _calm down_. Of course I didn’t know; have I done anything to you since you started down this road that would make you think I would sit on that kind of secret? I _didn’t know_. I wouldn’t have left you alone with your dad if I did-- for your sake. I’d be lying if I said I’d cry a river if something happened to him.”

“Then why did you ask me that in the room?”

Dean sighed and rocked back on his heels a little. “There’s not a book for this, Sam. We don’t turn many people, and even when the general process is the same, it’s not identical. When they took you, I did some asking around, trying to figure out how long you had, what might be happening. As few people as we turn, _no one_ has ever tried to bring over someone tangled up with demons. There were a few stories where there was an interruption of some kind in the transformation but the candidate survived, and there were... issues. With feeding afterwards, you know?”

“Then you at least _suspected_ this could happen and you still left us alone.”

“You threw me out,” Dean shrugged.

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “I might not have if you’d mentioned there was a chance I might try and _eat someone_ ,” he hissed. “I can’t live like this, Dean. I can’t--”

“Be a vampire?” Dean suggested pointedly.

“That’s different!”

“How?”

“Because,” Sam gritted out, “you told me I can live off rabbits and pigeons once I turn and that’s not what I’m... God. _Starving for_ right now. I can’t...”

“Calm down,” Dean repeated.

“Dean!”

“What? We’ll go away; we don’t have to worry about any kind of mystical tracking anymore, so we’ll just go away. Find a place with some distance between us and any humans until this passes. You feel like you want human blood, but you don’t actually _need_ it. None of the others did, and getting them out of population centers helped keep the craving to a dull roar. It’s a phase; hopefully a short one, but it will pass.”

“What if it doesn’t?” Sam asked.

Dean shrugged. “We’ll deal with it. If time gives you nothing else, it gives you perspective, Sam. This too _will_ pass.” He paused. “Did this happen when you were with the demons?”

“No. I knew I needed _something_ , but none of them were--” Sam almost choked on the word, “appetizing.”

“They were probably all dead,” Dean decided. “Even if the hosts were alive when they were taken, demonic possession tends be hard on a body. The part of you that’s craving the blood could tell the difference, so it wasn’t a problem until you ran into your dad.”

“What about my dad? I can’t be around him like this.”

Dean’s face grew serious. “You didn’t think you could stay in touch, did you? That you could be a part of both worlds? Your dad loves you. I don’t even like the man, but I can’t deny that. But he’s a hunter, and pain scoured out room for anything else decades ago. You know it; I know it; hell-- everyone he meets probably knows it. His peace as a father is going to have to be knowing that you’re alive and in a place you choose to be. Because he is never going to make peace with this as a hunter, and that’s the very core of what he is. The best thing for both of you is to walk away. You _cannot_ hunt this demon, and he can’t stop. Let him take revenge for both of you.”

“Good thing I have no choice then,” Sam said acidly.

Dean shrugged again. “Sometimes things fall into place after all. Think about it like this-- even if the demons can’t find _you_ anymore, they can still track your dad, they can still track Bobby. I mean: _Bobby_? He’s been sitting in that same pile of junk for _decades_. They probably have his address in the demonic directory of known pests.”

Sam nodded and the quiet sounds of the evening forest were all that filled the air for a few minutes. When he spoke again, it was so soft a human would have had to strain to make out the words. “I thought I’d already given everything up.”

Dean sat on the log beside him and nudged him with an elbow until he turned to look. “He came back for you.”

“To kill me,” Sam agreed in a strained voice. “He changed his mind at some point, and I was a little distracted when he was giving me the explanation, so all I really got was there was some kind of note and he came flying back across the ocean-- but you know, and I know, that someone told him I was trading my humanity in for a pair of fangs and he started soaking wooden bullets in dead man’s blood. _Immediately_. And... I guess he just couldn’t do it.”

“He came back to save you, Sam; whatever that meant to him. And he did. I would have found you eventually, but maybe not in time.” Dean traced a vein in the back of Sam’s hand with a finger until Sam balled up his fist and stood up out of reach. Dean rolled his eyes and continued. “I didn’t know anything about tracking demons; he was there when I needed his help.”

“He’s not going to take these new changes well,” Sam said in what was probably the biggest understatement he had ever uttered.

“Why would you tell him?” Dean asked with a note of incredulity. “It would be bad for his blood pressure, and he strikes me as the kind of guy who needs to watch that. Plus, it’s not like I’ve been exactly giving him chapter and verse on your new nature. I said ‘vampire’ and then just gave him a good glare when he tried to pry into the differences. He’s still a _hunter_.”

Dean stood up and grabbed Sam’s arm, hauling him into an embrace when he tried to pull back. After a moment, Sam relaxed and buried his face in Dean’s shoulder.

“He’ll understand why you have to leave, Sam.” Dean rubbed hands gently up and down Sam’s back, trying to coax some of the tension out.

“What about you?” Sam asked suddenly, picking his head up with a frown.

“What about me?”

“The demons can’t track me now, but what about you? How hard is it going to be to find another one of these?” He plucked at the front of his shirt over where the amulet lay. “It’s not like we can be separated for long...”

“I don’t need one,” Dean said with satisfaction. “I’m a shadow in the world.”

“What the hell does _that_ mean?” Sam asked.

“It means... you’ll find out in a few years. Let’s just say I can’t be magically located like most things and let it go at that. I’m not worried about the demons being able to pin me in place with their infernal- _whatever_. As soon as we say goodbye to Pops in there, we’re off the grid. Completely off, now that we have that charm for you.”

“Wish we’d had it years ago.”

“Yeah, well. You said I can’t kill Bobby.”

Sam remembered something. “My dad has an interesting bruise on his wrist.”

“Humans bruise easy.”

“That’s _really_ going to be your answer?”

“What do you want me to say?” Dean asked. “I needed some blood to amp up my strength before we stormed the little country cottage they were keeping you in, and your dad had a problem with me hunting. He made the offer; what was I supposed to do-- argue?”

Sam snorted, not even able to imagine how that conversation had gone. He let his head fall back onto Dean’s shoulder. The height difference meant it wouldn’t be comfortable for long, but a few more minutes would be fine. The easy movements of Dean’s hands were working magic on loosening stiff muscles.

“What are you doing?” Sam asked after a few minutes had passed in companionable silence.

“I’m trying to be supportive. You can’t tell?” Dean sounded crushed. “You’re unhappy; I’m being comforting.”

“The hand down the back of my pants doesn’t really say _comfort_ , Dean.”

“Distracting, then. Is it working?”

Sam felt his mood lighten despite himself but pushed away, dislodging Dean’s wandering hands. “I can’t go back in there, Dean. I can’t... What if I flip out again?”

“I’m not going to let you hurt him, Sam... tempting as that might be.”

“Don’t even _joke_ about that,” Sam growled.

“Tell you what. Just stay here for a minute.”

“Why?” Sam asked suspiciously.

“Just... stay here. Unless you want to go tell your dad that you’ve decided he’s the flavor of the month? Let me chase him off, then we’ll feed you a little more and see if you can’t at least say goodbye without focusing on his throat.”

Sam slumped back onto the log. “I should do it. I can’t just have you take him some message while I hang out here behind the buildi--”

“You want him with sprinkles or without?”

Sam glared mutinously, but didn’t move when Dean headed back to the motel alone.

~~~~~~~

John was easy to find, he was leaning against the rough concrete wall outside of the room, arms crossed and looking lost in thought. Dean didn’t disagree with Sam’s estimation that whatever had _actually_ happened, John’s purpose in hunting Sam down had not started out with the goal of extending his life expectancy. In a way, Dean kind of admired that level of dedication to a cause, but not with Sam involved. And _definitely_ not with the new developments. 

“You need to leave,” he greeted John, approaching soundlessly from down the walk.

“Where’s my son?” John demanded.

“Hanging out behind the building. You need to leave so I can bring him back inside and get him a little more...” Dean hesitated, “settled down.”

“I thought you got him ‘settled,’ earlier,” John accused. “Wasn’t that what you were doing when I walked in?” John’s lip curled just enough to let Dean know he had understood perfectly why Dean had orchestrated that scene, and that he wasn’t impressed. “I want to talk to Sam.” John straightened up and made to move past Dean. Dean stopped him with a hand to his chest.

“Look,” Dean said flatly, “he’s been missing for three weeks. You think I can fix everything they fucked up in ten minutes? He’s stressed out, and screwed up, and you being here is not helping matters. I could have grabbed him and taken off and you would have never heard another peep from him, but I’m trying to show you some courtesy. For Sam’s sake. He needs this, so you can either take off for a little bit and then come back and finish whatever discussion you were having earlier, or I can just knock you out, tie you up, stuff you in your truck, roll the whole package into that lake over there and tell Sam the same thing I’m going to tell him if you actually go find a bar for an hour or two. Guess which way makes my life easier?” Dean managed not to add ‘asshole’ to the end, but it was hard. John just rubbed him in all the wrong ways.

Tasty, though.

John’s eyes narrowed in anger, but Dean thought he also saw a glimmer of grudging respect. “One hour.”

“Fine.”

“If he’s not here...”

“You won’t be able to do a damn thing,” Dean cut in scornfully. “But since this is for Sam, and not for either of us, he _will_ be here-- giving you another opportunity to make everything just that much harder. Now go away.”

John looked like he wanted to snap something back, but just took a deep breath instead and fished his keys from his pocket. Dean watched as the truck pulled out and listened until he couldn’t hear it anymore. Then went back to get Sam.

  
 ****

 **Chapter Eleven**

“Get in the shower.”

Sam turned, surprised. “The shower?”

“Yeah.” Dean gestured towards the bathroom in the room Sam had first woken up in. “There’s this basin thing on the floor, and a plastic sheet hanging from a rod, and on the wall a twisty metal thing that makes the water come out. Go get in it, and rub some soap around. You reek like demons and I’d like a clean slate to put my personal touches on.”

“What kind of touches would those be?” Sam asked. He peeled the hoodie and t-shirt off, tossing them onto the dresser before skinning off his sweatpants and the socks he had ruined when he fled from the room earlier. What was on his feet hadn’t even blipped on the radar of things he was concerned about at the time.

“I’m not going to tell you; it’s the kind of thing that calls for a demonstration.” Dean paused and then added pointedly, “You don’t look like you’re in the shower yet.”

Sam flipped him the bird and disappeared into the bathroom. He looked surprised a few minutes later when Dean followed him in, dressed only in his battered jeans.

“I don’t think there’s room in here for both of us,” Sam suggested, pushing the curtain back a few more inches to see Dean better.

Dean swept it back all the way against the wall and pulled a few towels from the rack above the toilet to spread over the floor. “I’m not getting in, I’m just... helping. Give me the washcloth.”

“That kind of help will probably end with me getting a concussion,” Sam retorted, but his voice lacked conviction and he handed over the soapy cloth.

“Put your hands against the wall, relax, and shut up.”

“Yeah, because you _helping_ me get cleaned up is going to be _relaxing_.”

He subsided into compliance when Dean pressed the washcloth to the top of his spine and drew it down, sliding against water-slicked skin with just enough pressure to feel like ownership. After the hell of the past few weeks, Sam found Dean’s possessive attitude oddly reassuring, biological imperative on his part or not.

“Just... be quiet for a few minutes,” Dean muttered, preoccupied. “Did you already wash your hair?”

“I thought you wanted me to be quiet?”

The washcloth paused mid-swipe as Dean waited for an answer.

“Yeah,” Sam admitted.

Dean didn’t reply, but continued his efforts in making sure every inch of Sam was cleansed of the smells of his captivity. His movements were slow, methodical... and apparently designed to drive Sam crazy. He stopped if Sam’s hands left the wall, and by the time the washcloth was dipping past his bellybutton, Sam’s cock was so hard he was ready to take matters into his own hands if Dean didn’t pick up the pace a little. When the washcloth hesitated and then slid smoothly to his thigh, bypassing the area Sam wanted Dean’s hand the most, he groaned. “Dean...”

“I thought you were being quiet?”

“That was before I realized you just wanted to torture me.”

“Be patient.”

Sam rested his forehead on the cool tile and closed his eyes while Dean continued his painstaking exploration. But when Dean finally did slide his hands back up between Sam’s legs, the touches were so brief and impersonal that they left Sam as hard and aching as he had started.

“Dean?”

“I’ve got plans for that, and the bed. You’re the one who didn’t want a concussion.”

Sam stared, incredulous. “What the hell was the point of you coming in here then? I would have been done in half the time if you’d just waited for me.”

“I needed to do this,” Dean explained, meeting his eyes, and Sam was somewhat taken aback by how serious he looked.

“Okay,” Sam said slowly.

“You need more blood too,” Dean added. “And we might as well use the shower because you’re about the messiest feeder I’ve ever seen.”

“You don’t like licking blood off my skin?”

“I’d rather lick _your_ blood off your skin; cleaning up my own blood is just good manners.”

Sam saw only the merest hint of fangs before Dean buried them in his own wrist, then held it out for Sam as blood welled and spotted on the wet floor of the tub. Sam decided to forgo his reply in favor of the offering. It still wasn’t _exactly_ what his body wanted, but Sam was determined to never fill that particular need. Like before, the unsatisfied feeling faded after a few swallows.

When Dean reclaimed his wrist, his eyes were dark with entirely different desires. He ran his tongue over the holes in his skin and held out a hand to Sam in invitation.

“I wish you could close them up like that on me,” Sam muttered as he licked his lips and climbed out of the shower

“Soon you can do your own.” Dean handed him a towel and Sam wiped the water from his body and rubbed as much of it out of his hair as he could.

“You said to be patient; do I get a reward now? What are these plans you mentioned?” Sam asked as he followed Dean back into the bedroom.

Dean grinned at him. “I thought we’d relive the past a little.”

“Which part of it?”

Dean pushed him back until the back of his legs hit the mattress and he fell across it, then nudged his knees apart and knelt down on the carpet. “This part, where you’re all wet from the shower and naked in a cheap hotel room and I’m on my knees between your legs.”

There had been a lot of motel rooms and showers between them over the years, but Sam knew _exactly_ which time Dean was talking about. “I wasn’t naked.”

“Not at first,” Dean admitted. “Maybe this time you can look at me instead of staring at the ceiling and pretending I’m a girl.”

“It was the first time I’d had sex with a guy, Dean! Or a vampire; give me a break. And I _didn’t_ pretend you were a girl.”

“Are you sure?” Dean raised an eyebrow and smirked. “You were pretty uncomfortable. I don’t mind if you did.”

“I’m sure.” Sam met his eyes down the length of his own body. “I’d been thinking about it for awhile. I didn’t think I wanted to; I thought sex was... something I could pay you with. But when I came to you that night and you turned me down and took the pain away anyway... I was still thinking about it.” His gaze shifted down to Dean’s chest. “I couldn’t pretend it was some bartering thing I was bracing myself for anymore.” He met Dean’s eyes directly again. “I wanted you; why would I have pretended you were someone else when I’d been fantasizing about you for weeks?”

“Fantasizing, huh?” Dean’s smile made Sam’s erection ever more painfully hard, if that was possible. “You’ve never told me this before, Sam. Why don’t you give me some more details about this _fantasizing_ and maybe I can bring a little more of it to life...” He leaned in and wrapped his lips around the head of Sam’s cock, licking away the moisture beaded there and then pulling back before Sam could thrust. Dean held Sam’s hips tightly to the mattress and looked up. “I thought I asked you a question?”

Sam growled something unflattering, but slumped back in frustrated defeat at the expression of interest on Dean’s face and scrambled to remember what he had asked. “I wasn’t... there weren’t _details_ , Dean! I didn’t know what I wanted; I just _wanted_!”

“You suffer from a sad lack of imagination, Sam,” Dean accused with mock disappointment.

“Oh, my God,” Sam hissed in disbelief. “This _is_ just like the first time!”

“No,” Dean disagreed, eyes dark with arousal. “This isn’t going to end when I’m done with your cock. Good with that?”

“Whatever you want,” Sam pleaded. “Just--” He bucked up against Dean’s grip impatiently.

“Still so easy, Sammy.”

Anything Sam might have responded with vanished from thought when Dean licked one palm and used it to roll Sam’s balls gently in his hand while he laved his tongue up the shaft before swallowing it down to the root without warning. Sam made a strangled sound as he was blindsided by an orgasm from the unexpected, constricting heat of Dean’s throat as he swallowed around the head of Sam’s cock, and kept swallowing until Sam was drained and his body limp on the mattress.

Dean slid his mouth away from Sam’s dick to the silky soft skin high on the inside of his thigh. The skin was thin, and hot, and blood raced so close to the surface that Dean imagined he could hear the whisper of its passing. Sam knew what was coming and made some effort to spread his legs even wider, giving Dean more access. He didn’t bother picking his head up, though, enjoying the lassitude of his release. Dean used one hand to hold the leg in place, and the other to knead Sam’s hip for distraction. He didn’t bother with a warning before sliding his fangs through the skin to nick the vein. Sam tensed at the sharp pinch and then just sighed and let his body relax deeper into the mattress while Dean’s mouth worked against him in the familiar rhythm.

Sam was starting to slide off into sleep. Excitement and the stress of the night, and simple physical exhaustion, were lulling him into a state where it was easier to close his eyes and trust that Dean would be there still when he opened them than fight against the urge... when the hand kneading his hip slipped away, only to reappear a moment later coated with slickness and sliding against the smooth skin behind his balls to stroke gently at the opening there. Sam shifted uncomfortably and Dean’s hand tightened on his leg in warning until he settled back. Dean slid his palm upward and began a different plan of attack, stroking and squeezing until Sam’s cock began to take a renewed interest in the activity and his involuntary little movements had more to do with getting more contact than less.

Dean’s hand found the opening again and rubbed a slick knuckle against it until Sam relaxed against the pressure enough for Dean to slide first one, and then two fingers into the tight furnace of his body, spreading the lube deep and encouraging Sam to open up. As soon as Sam ground back on his hand, Dean slipped his fingers free and pulled his mouth back from the wound. He used the hand from Sam’s knee to fumble for the ready band-aid on the nightstand to cover the wound and then worked his slow way up Sam’s body until he could take his mouth in a bruising kiss.

“Still okay?” Dean asked a breathless eternity later when he finally pulled back.

“I’m fine,” Sam hissed. “Are you going to do it or just tease me all night?”

“Poor choice of words, Sam.” Dean’s smile was edged as he stood between Sam’s legs and gripped him behind a knee, pulling the thigh up to leave Sam completely exposed. Sam twisted the sheet in his fists and gave Dean a challenging look, somewhat ruined by the unfocused haze and shiver of anticipation when Dean lined the head of his cock up and pressed in slowly. Dean kept his hand behind Sam’s knee as he eased in, then pulled out and eased in again, a little deeper each time until Sam’s body had swallowed the entire length of his cock and Dean’s balls were pressed flush against his skin. Sam’s renewed erection had flagged somewhat during the process, but started to fill again as Dean continued his slow movements until Sam had loosened enough to take a faster pace. Sam gasped each time Dean bottomed out, and Dean held him pinned tightly in place, thrusting harder and deeper into his tight heat.

Impatient with the position that limited his reach, Dean pulled out entirely, ignoring Sam’s inarticulate complaint, and shoved him further up on the mattress so Dean could kneel between his thighs while sinking back into the tight, slick heat. Sam wrapped his legs around Dean in welcome. He moved against Dean’s weight, getting more friction against his own dick and pleased to have Dean where he could taste his mouth again. Dean kept one hand on Sam’s hip to help guide the rhythm and the fingers of his other hand tangled in Sam’s dark hair to keep his head where Dean wanted it. He was trying to focus on Sam’s face and ignore the siren call of his blood just begging to be tasted and devoured. Especially beneath his jaw; Dean’s favorite place in the world. But it was a bad idea, he had all the time in the world to claim Sam properly later-- doing it now would make things harder for Sam, and the part of Dean that could still _think_ didn’t want that, no matter how powerful the desire.

It was a struggle to remember that, as Sam arched and panted beneath him, eroding Dean’s willpower. And then as if reading his thoughts, Sam managed actual words.

“Bite me again,” he gasped. Dean was completely in favor, and twisted his attention away from Sam’s jaw line to nose along his arm, mouthing where an artery ran tantalizingly close to the surface. “No.” Sam grabbed a handful of hair and pulled to make sure he had Dean’s attention, then tilted his head back, exposing his throat. “Here.”

Dean strangled the impulse to immediately take Sam up on his offer.

“It’s... not a good idea, Sam,” he gasped.

“You _want_ to,” Sam challenged breathlessly.

He definitely did; he wanted to put his mark of freaking ownership right where John Winchester and the entire rest of the world would have to acknowledge it. “Yeah, but that’s why it’s not a good idea. You’ve still got to talk to him, Sam. That conversation’s going to be hard enough.”

Sam kept tugging at his hair until Dean met his eyes again. Sweat plastered hair to his face and his pupils were blown with the physical rush, but his eyes were still focused and fierce. “This is my decision; _you’re_ my decision. I want him to _see_ that.”

Dean ducked under his chin and pushed Sam’s head back more, giving himself plenty of room to find his favorite spot just over Sam’s racing pulse. He thrust a few more times, each one designed to shove Sam that much closer to the line, then drove his fangs through the tender skin, not bothering to disguise the bite as anything but what it was, trusting the crest Sam was already riding to twist the pain into something else entirely. Blood welled into his mouth as Sam moved under him, forcing Dean to exert more pressure to hold him at just the right angle.

With Sam’s blood in his mouth and his body willing and open beneath him, Dean had to make a conscious effort not to demand more than Sam could enjoy. Something that he usually did without thought made harder by the persistent knowledge that he had nearly lost _another_ fledgling, and the fierce desire to imprint himself so deeply that the mistake couldn’t be made again.

But it hadn’t been a mistake, and nothing as superficial and fleeting as sex would erase the sulphuric bite to Sam’s blood. It would take years of time to do that. _Years_. Dean pressed deep and swallowed while Sam shuddered in the tense storm of orgasm that rolled over them both.

Fucking years.

But it was time they would at least have. Dean touched the leather cord the amulet was strung on to reassure himself it was still around Sam’s neck and promised himself to have it replaced with something more durable as soon as humanly possible. If it _was_ possible. He felt calmer with the flavor of Sam’s blood still rich in his mouth. It wasn’t the missing bond, but it was a solid start, and some of the frantic tension he had carried for weeks was easing into a feeling of better control. Control was the vital key that kept his kind above the chaos and insanity of their cousins, the tool that let them survive and thrive in a world that would otherwise do anything to destroy them. Its lack was the cardinal sin of his people and he had missed that feeling almost as much as he had missed his fledgling. Almost. Dean dropped an impulsive kiss onto Sam’s flushed cheek and gently pulled free of his body. He untangled their limbs and slid off to one side.

“I’m going to need another shower,” Sam mumbled a few minutes later. Dean admired the picture Sam made: blood was still trickling in slow drops from the wound on his neck and sweat slicked his pale skin. The knee he still had bent was doing absolutely nothing for any modesty.

Dean ran a finger along Sam’s spent cock and back to the slightly swollen ring between his legs, slick with lube and the results of Dean’s own pleasure. He traced his finger gently around it. Sam opened one eye and glared in discomfort, but didn’t bother moving.

“Wanna go again?” Dean asked, only half joking.

Sam groaned and finally moved. He only made it as far as rolling onto his belly, which didn’t do much for getting Dean to stop touching sensitive areas.

“You know,” Sam mused, “way back when we first met, if you had just kind of pinned me down in that first motel room and done this? We could have skipped an awful lot of misery.”

Dean snorted and went to grab a warm washcloth from the bathroom. “I don’t think you would have been very open to this at that point.”

He cleaned Sam up and then slapped his ass to let him know he could sit up.

“Maybe not.” Sam sat on the edge of the bed and stretched. “But that’s kind of a shame, in hindsight.”

“I didn’t know I liked you then,” Dean retorted. “You were a hunter and kind of an ass.”

“Are you sure you like me now?” Sam asked with a rueful smile, not arguing although the desire to point out that _Dean_ had been _at least_ as responsible for the hostilities of their initial relationship was strong. “I’ve been more trouble than just about anyone else in the world would have been.”

Dean braced himself on Sam’s shoulder and leaned in to lick away blood that was still seeping from the wounds in Sam’s throat. “You’re delicious.”

“Even with the taint?” Sam asked in a low voice.

“That will fade, Sam,” Dean sighed, pulling back. “And yeah, even so. It pisses me off, but it doesn’t change a thing between us, okay?”

Sam nodded; the expression of relief that crossed his face told Dean he should have said the damn words sooner. And maybe a few more just to make his position clear. Sam tended to brood and dwell and Dean didn’t want any lingering misunderstandings.

“I didn’t choose you because I desperately wanted to go through all of the baby vampire crap again, Sam. I picked you because I wanted _you_. You can’t be enough trouble to make me regret that. As long as you _want_ to be here, I’m willing to shoulder my share of the bullshit. Demons, dads, and whatever other baggage is trailing along behind you. Got it?”

“Yeah.” Sam brushed fingers over the puncture wounds in his throat with a brief grimace. “And... I meant this. What you said about ‘having my cake and eating it too’? I know what you were saying, and I know you’re right. And... I’m ready. I just didn’t think I would ever have to face him, you know? I think I wanted to believe he was dead, instead of just _abandoning_ me. And it turns out that he didn’t, really. I think he would have come to help me if he could have.”

“He _deserves_ to be dead,” Dean accused acidly.

Sam sighed. “I think he did the best he could; what he thought was right. He had reasons. He did everything in his power to protect me.”

“Some things you just can’t protect people from.”

“No,” Sam agreed. “But that’s hard to tell a father.” His smile was pained, but it was genuine. “I spent half my life hating him for being who he was, Dean. For the crap he put me through and his insane obsession, but... I understand now. It doesn’t make everything better, but having an explanation, having him _here_ , even if just long enough to say goodbye-- that’s a lot.”

Dean snorted. “I think he’s an unhinged psycho-- but that kind of goes with his job.”

“Thanks,” Sam said dryly. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “When is he supposed to be back?”

Dean checked the clock too. “Any minute.”

Sam swore and stood up. He grabbed his t-shirt out of the pile of clothing on the dresser and glared when Dean pulled it out of his grip and tossed it back.

“Don’t even think about putting those clothes back on. We just got you cleaned up!”

“I’m not clean; I’m disgusting, Dean. And what the hell do you suggest? I’m not going to talk to him naked; we gave him enough of a show earlier.”

“ _I_ like talking to you naked. And there’s different kinds of clean and dirty.”

“I don’t remember you being this crazed about what I smelled like before.”

Dean shot him a withering look. “ _Before_ , no one had put their claws in you and _broken our bond_. Excuse me if I’m going to be a little hypersensitive for a few weeks. My head knows you’re back, but it’s going to take the instincts and hormones and crap some time to catch up. We just need to do some reestablishing, and in the meantime, I need not to be reminded that someone _took you away_ every time I get close.”

“Which doesn’t solve the naked problem. You can put up with it for a couple of hours,” Sam asserted heartlessly, reaching for the shirt again.

Dean rolled his eyes and grabbed up the entire pile. “Just wait a second.”

He disappeared into the adjoining room and came back a second later carrying a pair of jeans and a dark, long-sleeved shirt.

“Are those my dad’s?” Sam asked.

“You think he won’t share? Not that I particularly care,” Dean shrugged. “I didn’t really bring along a lot of luggage. Or any.”

“What about your whole possession trip? Now you want to dress me in my _dad’s_ clothes?”

Dean snorted. “Better John fucking Winchester than demons. He only wants to take you _physically_ away. But the very _first_ thing we’re doing once we put another hundred miles between us and any interested parties is getting you another bath and some clothes that only smell like _me_.”

  
 ****

 **Chapter Twelve**

Sam was sitting alone on the end of the neatly made bed in the main room when John let himself back in.

“Those clothes look familiar,” John said gruffly. His assessing gaze didn’t miss the faint shadows of fresh bruises along Sam’s jaw line, or the dark scabs of the neat bite mark on the side of his throat. Sam’s dark hair was tucked behind the ear on that side as if to make sure he got an eyeful.

“Sorry,” Sam said with a hint of true apology. “Dean took offense to what I was wearing. I think he’s outside somewhere burning them right now. Something about the way they smelled.”

“I was going to ask where he had gone.”

Sam’s eyes stared straight into his. Mary’s eyes, but full of his son’s defiance, and willfulness, and... love.

And pain.

“I doubt he’s gone far.”

There was sadness in his voice too, twisted with an implacable resolve that gave John a burst of pride even as it stirred the simmering anger. But Sam’s words sliced right to the heart of the matter, freeing them both from awkward wording and veiled truths.

“It’s not too late for you.” John’s voice was low. But he already knew what Sam would say, it was written in every line of his body. The hunter in him had to make the attempt, but the father...

John had spent so much of his life ignoring that part of his life to clearly understand what it was telling him now. He didn’t want to lose his only child, and he didn’t want Sam to die.

“It is,” Sam contradicted almost gently. “It’s been too late for me since the fire, and we both know it now. I know why you did what you did, but I have to live my life with the consequences. I’m not human, and if I can’t just be _human_ , then I want to choose my own path.”

“You survived weeks without him,” John said harshly. “Whatever is _different_ about you-- you can do it again. You can come with me now; he won’t stop you. I know him that well. We can leave, and get you through _whatever_ this is, and then--”

“And then what?” Sam asked. “You put me in a salted iron ward and sit by with a shotgun and a rosary waiting for the demons to come? For the rest of my _life_? You have a mission already, and... I’m not unhappy, Dad. I wouldn’t have _chosen_ this if I could have had any life I wanted, but a lot of those choices were made for me. _This_ is what I have, and it’s what I want now. I need you to understand that. I don’t need to be saved anymore.”

John closed his eyes against the painful honesty.

“What do you want me to do with this?” he finally asked. He didn’t hear Sam move, but opened his eyes when a hand touched his arm.

“I want you to let me go.”

“Sam...” John began, shaking his head.

Sam wrapped his arms around him, and after a moment, John relented and hugged him back tightly, feeling a burn behind his eyes like he hadn’t experienced in more than twenty years.

It felt like smoke.

“I _need_ you to let me go,” Sam repeated in a choked voice. John just tightened his grip and buried his face in his son’s shoulder. Knowing, _knowing_ , that it would be the last time. “Dad...”

John could smell his own aftershave, the cheap scent of the motel soap, the faint hint of blood, and the sweetness of sweat in Sam’s hair. But mostly it was just Sam. His and Mary’s child, the last and best legacy of their brief marriage and the innocence of his early life. But Sam wasn’t a child anymore, and he had never been safe _enough_. John let out a slow breath and then released him, stepping back and refusing to rub at whatever was in his eyes.

He cleared his throat. “If you ever need anything. You, uh--”

“I know where Bobby lives.”

John nodded. “What if I need to reach you?”

Sam was silent for a long minute, and then he exhaled heavily. “I... don’t think that’s a good idea.”

No, it wasn’t. It was the hunter that had asked.

John reached out one hand and touched the marks on Sam’s throat. Sam lifted his chin, meeting his eyes with no hint of shame or apology.

John nodded and let his hand fall back to his side. He reached out and lifted his duffle from the dresser and slid the strap over his shoulder. He wanted to give Sam advice, suggestions on where to go and a reminder of the demons still after him. Warnings about hunters, and share a few of the tips he had learned on his trip. But the words died in his mouth. Sam wasn’t his responsibility anymore. Wasn’t _his_ at all. They weren’t even allies in the same fight. Sam had abandoned the side of the angels, and there was nothing left to say.

“I love you, Dad.”

Maybe that.

“I love you too, kiddo. Take care of yourself.” It was as much warning as hope.

John stepped outside into the cool air of evening, leaving Sam behind in the warm glow of the motel lamps. It had been scarcely four hours since he had snatched Sam from the grip of demons, but it seemed like a decade has passed. He headed towards his truck, feeling the weight of his years with each step. A familiar figure was leaning against the driver’s side door.

“Making sure I’m leaving alone?” John asked sardonically.

Dean’s smile was sharp enough to cut. “Oh, I wasn’t worried about that. Just wanted to give you some friendly advice.”

“I think I got the message already.”

“For Sam’s sake, I really hope so. But you would be smart not to forget how the demons found him last time; I sure as hell haven’t. He was safe until you came along and caused this cluster-fuck. This time I plan to bury him so deep that for the next decade God himself won’t have a clue where he is, but if I even sorta get the feeling you might be poking around, I will destroy you.”

“What would Sam say?”

“Sam would never know,” Dean promised. “It would just be a little secret between you, me, and the worms that feast on your rotting carcass under whatever rock I stuff you.”

“I wouldn’t hurt my _son_ ,” John gritted out.

“Not right now,” Dean agreed. “But tomorrow? Next year? A few miles down the road when you’ve had time to think it over? Forget about Sam, John. I believe there’s a part of you that genuinely cares, and I want that part to know that I will do _everything_ in my power to keep him safe and eventually steady on his own two feet. The rest of you can go to Hell.”

“Just so we know where each other stands,” John said with a hint of the same grim humor Sam showed on occasion.

“Exactly.”

~~~~~~~

“I’m proud of you,” Dean greeted Sam when he walked back into the motel room. 

“For what?”

“I saw your dad in the parking lot; looked like you resisted the urge to turn him into kibble.”

“That isn’t funny, Dean,” Sam groused.

“It would have made my _decade_ , Sam. The whining might have gotten old, though,” he added, unfazed by Sam’s withering look.

Realizing he was having no effect on Dean’s apparent good humor, Sam gave up. “I still wanted to, but not as badly as before. I felt like I had more control.”

“Control is key,” Dean asserted with sudden seriousness. “I guess we’ll just keep you away from humans unless you’ve been tanked up.”

“Maybe it was the sex,” Sam retorted sarcastically.

“Exhaustion doesn’t usually help control.”

“You’ve got a high opinion of yourself,” Sam snorted. “Do I look _exhausted_ to you?”

Dean grinned. “Is that a challenge? I love challenges.”

Sam glanced at the clock. “How long did you say you thought we had before company showed up?”

Dean followed his gaze. “Not long enough for more fun tonight; we’ve been pushing it as it is. I’ll make you eat your words another time.”

“Looking forward to it.”

Dean left the key on the table and the two of them headed out to the car. Sam stopped dead when he caught sight of their destination.

“What happened to the Impala?”

“We took enough of a chance keeping her as long as we did,” Dean said regretfully, eyeing the battered wreck he had liberated from its deceased owner.

“This was the best you could do?”

Dean started to snap something about picky eaters, but managed to stop himself. There were some truths and realities that Sam wasn’t quite ready to face. “We’re going to have to move through a bunch of vehicles in the next couple of nights; you can pick the next ride.”

Sam refrained from further comment, though his expression as he settled gingerly into the mess of empty fast food containers and cigarette butts spoke volumes. Dean ignored it. The springs squealed and the engine choked, but it _did_ reluctantly sputter to life. Sam’s silence was almost as loud as the engine, but Dean refused to let it dampen his mood.

“So, where to?” Sam asked as Dean finally pulled the rusted hulk out onto the empty highway.

“I made some calls; you’ll like this place. It’s a sweet little cabin out in the Rockies. There’s a good three hour hike to the nearest town, it’s private property, and if you don’t want to walk, the only access is by helicopter.”

“A three hour hike?” Sam asked dubiously.

“Well, more of a rock scramble,” Dean admitted easily. “But you’re the one always bitching about needing to stretch your legs-- think of it as a natural Bowflex. We can arrange a supply drop in a shed on the outskirts of the... ‘village’ is probably generous, and then just pick it up when we want to. No need to ever see another living person. Anything major I’ll have dropped off, but the place is really pretty nice. I haven’t been there in about a decade or so. The path didn’t wasn’t always so bad, but there was a rock slide and, well-- it should be nice and isolated.”

Sam felt a smile curve his lips despite himself.

“It sounds good,” he said sincerely.

“Yeah, it does,” Dean agreed. “And we only need to lay about four or five months of confusing back trail to throw off any pursuit before we cozy up there for a few years.”

Sam let his head fall back against the headrest with a groan, and then thought better of it and sat up straight, not at all sure he trusted the car to not be infested with lice. Was glad to be in a place where something like that was worth being concerned about. “Four or five months?”

“I want to be sure.”

“Yeah. And then how many years?”

Dean was silent for a long minute, the only sound in the car the rumble of the engine and the road flying by under their wheels.

“Does it matter? It will happen eventually, and when it does, I’ll bring you out of the mountains and pick you out a nice plot in Kansas for a few months and then...” His voice trailed off.

“And then... what?” Sam prompted.

“Freedom,” Dean said simply. “However you want to spend it.”

Sam leaned forward and twisted the radio on, sure there would be classic rock out there somewhere in the night. “Drive faster.”

  


**END**  


  


  


[Masterpost](http://glasslogic.livejournal.com/35876.html)

  


**Author's Note:**

> A/N's at http://glasslogic.livejournal.com/35876.html


End file.
